Lot 1006 Dα

St Christopher, the medieval saint of intercession, was depicted by numerous painters. At the beginning of the 16th century, a large proportion of the population believed that evil could be averted by looking at the image of the mythical St Christopher.
This spectacular landscape with its rugged rock formations is modelled on compositions of the same subject by Joachim Patinir (around 1480 Dinant or Bouvignes - before 1524 Antwerp). Patinir is considered the first landscape painter in the Netherlands. As in Patinir's work, the present landscape is painted from a bird's eye view, which allows the landscape to unfold in all its aspects.