Sotheby’s Catalogue Note:

The present painting illustrates a rare, but important, facet of Joseph Heintz the Younger's artistic production. Best known for his birds-eye depictions of Venetian interiors, Heintz the Younger instead populates this work, which is rooted in contemporary alchemical practices, with fantastical imagery inspired by Hieronymus Bosch. Heintz the Younger's Allegory (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. 9096), signed and dated 1674, was similarly executed on a grand scale and likewise offers a mélange of iconographic traditions, suggesting this painting was similarly produced during the artist's late period.

Joseph Heintz the Younger was the son of the Rudolfine painter and etcher Joseph Heintz the Elder (Basel 1564 - 1609 Prague). Though influenced by his father's work, Heintz the Younger apprenticed with his stepfather and fellow Rudolfine court painter, Matthäus Gundelach. Heintz the Younger is thought to have worked in Rome during the 1630s and early 1640s, eventually settling in Venice, where in circa 1644 Pope Urban VIII elevated him to the Order of the Golden Spur.

An alternative attribution to the so-called Master of the Fertility of the Egg has also been suggested. The eponymous painting of this little known master depicts dwarfs, geese and lobsters hatching eggs and is today located in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum (inv. no. M.1963-26). If indeed by this hand, the present picture would appear to be the greatest work to have emerged.

A certificate and essay by Stefano Causa endorsing the attribution to Joseph Heintz the Younger accompanies the picture.