Attributed to PIETER DE NEEFS (Antwerp, ca.1578 - between 1656 and 1661). "Interior of a Church. Oil on panel. It has a label on the back from the Sala Pares (Barcelona). Size: 13 x 15.5 cm; 23 x 27 cm (frame). The main contribution of Pieter Neefs the Elder to the pictorial genre consisted in the representation of nocturnal sacred interiors illuminated by two spotlights, torches or candles. He also produced numerous works such as the one presented here: magnificent Gothic church interiors with soft tonalities and sophisticated transitions between the spaces of light and shadow, in which the artist places particular emphasis on spatial geometry - note the chequered pavements on the floor, which help to effectively construct the space in perspective. His detailed works fill the space with numerous small figures, typical of Flemish church interiors of the Baroque period, a genre in its own right. The figures are finely detailed, perfectly identifiable by their clothes and physiognomies. Most of them are gentlemen, although we also see some ladies and children, all dressed in 18th-century Flemish fashion, and even dogs frolicking in such magnificent scenery. A Flemish Baroque painter specialising in sacred architecture, principally church interiors, Pieter Neefs was the head of a lineage of painters of the same name that included his sons Lodewijk and Pieter the Younger. Although we know little corroborated information about his biography, we can confirm that Pieter Neefs the Elder joined the Guild of Painters of Saint Luke around 1610, at which point he first expressed an interest in depicting Gothic church interiors, using stereotypical models for their execution. Although some of these churches have not been identified because they are imaginary, in many other cases they are the interiors of important Flanders churches, such as the interior of the church of Saint Paul in Antwerp (now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Peter Neefs the Elder frequently collaborated with other painters, principally with Frans Francken the Younger, with whom he signed in 1636 "Viaticum inside a Church" in the Museo del Prado and "Evening Mass in a Gothic Church" in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but also with his son, Frans Francken III, with Gonzales Coques and with Pieter Brueghel the Younger, who painted the figures that populate some of his compositions. The exact date of his death is not known, but it must be between 1656, the last year for which there are records, and 1661 when Cornelis de Bie speaks of him in the past tense in his Het gulden cabinet (Antwerp, 1661). His work is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid and the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague, among other important institutions.