Landscape with Travelers Attacked by a Gang of Robbers

The subject of waylaid travelers was a popular motif for Netherlandish artists, especially around 1600. As a consequence of the war with Spain, displaced mercenaries and army deserters occasionally formed bands of robbers and victimized travelers and rural inhabitants. In this engraving after a drawing by David Vinckboons, a variety of incidents take place at the edge of a dark forest interior. As women and children flee their captured wagon, two bandits aim their guns at another traveler escaping on horseback. The ominous silhouette of a dead man hangs from a tree warning the viewer of possible perils encountered in the forest. Like Coninxloo, Flemish painter David Vinckboons left Antwerp after 1585 and settled in Amsterdam in 1586.