The Four Elements

The figures in the present painting are attributable to Frans Francken II and the landscape to Jasper van der Lanen. Three stylistically similar examples of these two artists collaborating are known, one dated 1624 (see U. Hrting, Frans Francken der Jngere, Freren, 1989, pp. 145-147). The animals, the flowers and the plants on the right of the composition, as well as the figures in the middle distance are attributable to Jan Brueghel II. The painting may have been executed during the second part of the 1620s, after the return of the younger Brueghel from Italy in 1625.