Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c. 1500 – c. 1566),

was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter. His genre scenes develop the "Mannerist inversion" later taken further by Pieter Aertsen, where a small religious scene in the background reveals the true meaning of the painting, which is dominated by a large foreground scene seemingly devoted to a secular genre subject. Jan Sanders van Hemessen trained his daughter Catharina van Hemessen who became a successful portrait painter. The displayed painting is a crop from Judith, c. 1540.