Jacob de Formentrou

[2] The painting A gentleman courting a lady music making in a courtyard dated 1668 (sold at Christie's on 10 December 2010, London, lot 2122) constitutes the last recorded information on de Formentrou.

The earliest works in this genre depicted art objects together with other items such as scientific instruments or peculiar natural specimens.

[5] It depicts a room full of pictures populated with human figures who are usually interpreted as representing art connoisseurs.

The composition also includes portraits of Rubens and van Dyck, the two eminent Antwerp artists of the previous generation.

A cabinet of pictures depicts an imaginary gallery and can be seen as a summing up of the best of what artists in mid 17th-century Antwerp could produce.

[4] It can also be regarded as a carefully crafted advertisement of the current talent and past legacy of the Antwerp school of painting.