Jacob Balthasar Peeters
(Antwerp ? before 1650 — 1720?)

The Return of the Prodigal Son on the Steps of a Classical Palace
signed with the initials J.B.P. and possibly indistinctly dated on the plinth of the first urn in the mid-center

oil on canvas

23"×32" (58 cm×81 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, November 29, 1946, lot 138 (as by Steenwijk) where purchased by Lahn or Luhn; Private Collection, Boca Raton, Florida

Jacob Balthasar Peeters’s works are part of a tradition that began with Hans Vredeman de Vries (1567 — before 1636?), the first artist to specialize in architectural painting. De Vries was an architect who published pattern books that became influential throughout northern Europe. Essentially treatises on architecture, they were profusely illustrated with examples of how to create perspective by means of imaginary architecture especially via grand courtyards and palaces, and proved a rich resource for later artists. Several generations of painters copied, borrowed details, or were generally inspired by these diagrams.(1)

As the taste for the Baroque gained momentum these works became more opulent in texture, electric in lighting effects, monumental in their architecture and stage-like in the settings. The aristocratic figures that populated these works reflected the status of their original purchasers or those that aspired to partake in the fantasy.(2) Appealing to this type of clientele were story lines such as the one portrayed in The Return of the Prodigal Son. A parable on the virtues of repentance and forgiveness, it tells the tale of a father who divided his estate between his two sons and the younger’s subsequent departure. Fleeced quickly of his fortune while in the pursuit of worldly pleasures, the younger son is soon reduced to manual labor tending pigs. The error of his ways becomes evident and he arrives home in rags. The return in our painting takes place on the palace steps where the wayward son begs forgiveness from his overjoyed father. A servant is seen to the right holding new clothes, while the fatted calf is being brought for the coming feast. The only note of restraint is displayed by the elder son who stands to the left of the central group.

Jacob Balthasar Peeters is known as a painter of landscapes, church interiors and architectural scenes. In 1675 he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke and in 1688 a master of the guild. Jan van der Straeten (1670 -1727) was his pupil and specialized in painting scenes of palatial terraces. Peeters’s works can be found in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras and Gaunö Castle, Denmark.

(1) Marjorie E. Wieseman, "Hendrick van Steenwijk the Younger", exhibition catalogue Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Age of Rubens, September 22, 1993 — January 2, 1994, p. 446.

(2) Hans Vlieghe, Flemish Art and Architecture 1585 — 1700, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1998, p. 201.

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