I spent a wonderful three hours in the Metropolitan Museum in New York one recent morning. I focused on paintings similar to one I acquired on a recent Paris side trip to The Biennale des Antiquaires at the Grand Palais. The work in question is a painting of San Sebastián, painted in 1630 and attributed to Utrectht artist Jan Gerritsz van Bronckhorst.
The painting is both mannerist and heavily influenced by the style of Caravaggio, so I looked at both Flemish and Italian paintings of the era. An extraordinary number of masters were working at the time and I became enchanted by the expression of drapery and by the dramatic compositions.