FANTASY LANDSCAPE WITH ANTIQUE FIGURAL STAFFAGE Oil on wood. 46 x 64 cm. As is so often the case in Netherlandish painting, the landscape is imaginatively presented and enlivened with a staffage of ancient mythological figures. Here the viewer's gaze is drawn between groups of trees and mountainous hills into a valley with a town in the distance. Here, too, the towers are imaginative pictorial inventions intended to create an illusion of historical distance. The young couple in the foreground shows a scantily clad Venus embracing a young man. It is Adonis with a hunting spear who, according to legend, is killed by a boar while hunting. Here the two are still united next to Venus' chariot, originally drawn by two swans. There is still no certainty about the painter's training. Lucas van Uden is assumed to be his teacher. In 1647 he was already a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp. He is later named as a citizen of Namur. He worked in Lille in the 1670s and probably moved back to Antwerp around 1680. The painting shows a harmonious effect with high painting quality. (14009412) (11) Gillis Aegidius Neyts, 1623 - 1687, attributed FANTASY LANDSCAPE WITH ANTIQUE FIGURAL STAFFAGE Oil on panel. 46 x 64 cm.