The Five Senses

Five women have carried their meal into the woods, and each stands for one of the senses. One holds up a mirror for sight, another plays the lute for hearing. Allegories of the senses were a favourite subject in Antwerp in the early 17th century, and this panel was long credited to Abraham Govaerts, a landscape painter there. A signature low on the left, F. Franck, points instead to Frans Francken the Younger, and the Louvre now lists him, keeping Govaerts as another attribution. The panel also has a wartime past. It was offered at the Hôtel Drouot auction house in Paris on 13 December 1943, and a label on the back names a later owner in Munich. Recovered after the war and returned to France, in 1950 it was assigned to the Louvre as one of the works the state holds until their rightful owners can be identified.