Jan Carel Vierpeyl, Merry Company Making Music
Indistinctly signed and dated lower right: J C vierpijl f 1718 (?)
There is little information about the biography of the Flemish painter Jan Carel Vierpeyl: in 1698 he was enrolled as a pupil of Jacob Balthasar Peeters in the Antwerp Luke Guild, so that his birth can be assumed between 1665 and 1685. Another teacher of the young artist could have been the genre painter Balthasar van den Bossche. Vierpeyl can be found in Antwerp from 1697 to 1717; there are also indications of a stay in England. The artist's last dated painting dates back to 1723 - after which his trace is lost.
The paintings by Vierpeyl that have become known so far are either portraits or genre scenes with a "Merry Company". For the latter group, which also includes paintings at Muzeul National Brukenthal in Sibiu and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, our painting is an important enrichment. A group of musicians has gathered in front of a lavishly structured, unusually sumptuous architecture, which, however, is immersed in semi-darkness, so that the richly differentiated, strong colorit of the clothing shines all the more effectively against the dark background.