VOS, Cornelis de
(b. 1584/85, Hulst, d. 1651, Antwerpen)

Magdalena and Jan-Baptist de Vos

c. 1622
Oil on canvas, 78 x 92 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Children are notoriously hard to paint, whether they are the artist's own or someone else's. About 1622, when de Vos portrayed his four-year-old daughter Magdalena and his son Jean-Baptist, one year her junior, he dressed them in party finery but seated them outdoors, with a textile hanging behind them. A setting sun at the upper right is in striking contrast to the ebullience of these fruit-eating infants.