Nymphs filling the horn of plenty

In January 1795 French revolutionary troops crossed the frozen rivers into the Dutch Republic, and the stadholder, Prince William V, fled to England. His paintings in The Hague were confiscated and sent to the Louvre, and this panel went with them. It came home after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, and a year later it was back on show in the prince's own gallery on the Buitenhof. The picture the French took is a woodland scene painted in 1615 by two Antwerp masters sharing one panel, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Rubens. Nymphs gather around a great horn of plenty, the classical sign of abundance, and push fruit into its mouth, while a small boy up in the apple tree picks more and a young woman carries a full basket on her head. Plums, apples and pears lie scattered along the path in the foreground.