Not much is known of the life of the Flemish artist Valentin Lefebvre. The fundamental influence on his work, clear also in the present sheet, is the Venetian artist Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), but it has also been pointed out that Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi were significant.1 Both those painters were working in Venice between 1663-68, in the Library of San Giorgio Maggiore, where Lefebvre was also active around the same period. As an artist Lefebvre mainly concentrated on engravings for illustrations and he is the author of the Opera Selectiora, published in 1682.
