Lot 180: JACOB ANDRIES BESCHEY

JACOB ANDRIES BESCHEY 1710 - 1786 THE VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH SAINTS MARGARET OF ANTIOCH, CATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA AND ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY signed lower left: J. Bescheij oil on panel 45.5 by 37 cm.; 17 7/8 by 14 1/2 in.

Anonymous Sale, Paris, Eve, 20 June 2005, lot 52.

Jacob Andries was the brother of Balthasar Beschey, a well-known painter of historical subjects, landscapes and portraits and Director of the Antwerp Academy. Jacob Andries himself was elected as a master of the Gulid of St. Luke in 1727, and followed his brother to became Dean in 1766.

The composition is derived from Rubens' large altarpiece painted for the church of St. Augustine in Malines and now in the Toledo Museum of Art (see the catalogue The Toledo Museum of Art. European Paintings, Toledo 1976, reproduced fig. 102).