Hendrick Govaerts

[1] His pupils included Carel Beschey, Jan Fransus Martens, Bonaventura Peeters the Younger, Michiel Schalck and Johannes Gellemaerts.

The latter were likely inspired by his stay in Prague and Vienna where he may have visited the then budding theatre scene which had become part of court life.

[4] His merry company scenes typically depict elegantly dressed people entertaining themselves with music, dance, masquerades, theatre performances etc.

A band is playing music while actors parody the antics of Italian medicine vendors and quack doctors as entertainment for the company.

It depicts a rich patrician interior, illuminated on the left by high, double windows, decorated with a monumental portal and a sculptural group of Hercules fighting a Nemean lion, situated above the fireplace.

The painting belongs to the genre of images of galleries and collectors' offices popular in the mid-17th century and of which David Teniers the Younger was one of the principal practitioners.

One of his most remarkable allegories is The Guild of the Crossbow Venerates the Portrait of Headman Jan Karel de Cordes (1711, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp).

This scene with putti floating in the air carrying the armor of the headman is set on a kind of platform as if it were a theatrical stage.