Chrispijn van den Broeck

[7] Van den Broeck remained in Frans Floris' workshop until the master's death in 1570.

According to the Flemish contemporary art historian and artist Karel van Mander, Chrispijn van den Broeck and Frans Pourbus completed an altarpiece for the Grand Prior of Spain left incomplete at the time of Floris' death.

[9] In 1584, van de Broeck resided in Middelburg for a short time to escape the political and religious unrest in Antwerp.

From 16th and 17th century inventories in Antwerp van den Broeck's work is regularly mentioned, which indicates that his output must have been larger.

[3] While there is no evidence that the artist visited Italy, his work shows the influence of the Venetian Jacopo Bassano in the use of large, solid figures placed within a landscape.

As he was a pupil of the Romanist Frans Floris who did study in Italy he may have received the Italian influence through his master.

Van den Broeck further adopted Floris technique of applying a brown preparatory ground underneath the main colours of his paintings.

While an apple was often used as a symbol of physical love, it would be wrong to assume the painting depicts two homosexual lovers.

The stone panel at the top of the picture bears the artist's initials and recalls funerary sculpture.

[3] From 1566 onwards van den Broeck started to create design drawings for publications by Christoffel Plantin, such as for Benito Arias Montano's Humanae salutis monumenta published in 1571.

[3] He designed the illustration of the allegory of the Low Countries used in Lodovico Guicciardini's Descrizione di tutti I Paesi Bassi (1567).