Oil on canvas, cm. 93x127,5. FramedDirk de Vries after the Dutch apprenticeship moved to Venice around 1590 and there, together with painters such as Pozzoserrato and Joseph Heintz the younger, he went to increase the ranks of the colony of painters from Netherlands active in the Serenissima. In his painting we find a typical and interesting connection of peculiar characteristics of the Nordic tradition revised through the influence of Venetian painting. Strong connection constitutes an exemplary case in the present painting in which the carnival theme populated by the masks of the commedia dell'arte are combined with a typically FLEMISH imaginary. In the photographic archive of the RKB (Netherlands Institute for Art History) there is a reproduction of a painting similar to ours, except for some compositional variations, which was auctioned in Berlin in 1930 and more recently at Sotheby's in London on 12/06 / 1995, l. 226.