Artus Wolffort

He returned to Antwerp around 1615 where he worked as an assistant in the studio of Otto van Veen, one of the teachers of Peter Paul Rubens.

[4] Artus Wolffort was one of the artists who worked on the decorations for the Joyous Entry into Antwerp of the new governor of the Habsburg Netherlands Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635.

Wolffort regularly used themes and motifs of van Veen in these early works, which were executed in a proto-Baroque style.

This is obvious in the work Christ in the house of Simon the Pharisee (one version auctioned at Sotheby's 4 November 2009, London, lot 56, one version in the church of St. Martin, Bergues, and another in the New Gallery (Kassel) (now considered a copy)), which was originally considered a work by van Veen.

The composition itself is loosely based on Rubens' work of the same subject in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, but reversed.

Esther's Toilet in the Harem of Ahasuerus
The Holy Trinity
Christ at the Pool of Bethesda
The Four Elements