Vincent Sellaer

Van Mander described Sellaer as a good painter of allegories, such as Leda with two eggs, Susanna and the elders, and Cleopatra with the asp.

[4] Scholars believe that Sellaer was the foremost painter in Mechelen, and his patrons were likely members of the court and the city's Great Council.

An example is The Madonna and Child with Saints Elizabeth and other Members of the Holy Family (At Sotheby's on 28 January 2010 in New York, lot 253).

As in many compositions of Sellaer, children play an important role in this painting by animating it with their movement and round smiling faces.

The motif of a child climbing onto the back of the central female figure was one of Sellaer's favoured devices in these compositions.

This is also reflected in another favourite theme of Sellaer, the depiction of the virtue of Charity, which in the sixteenth century was typically represented by a woman surrounded by infants.