Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans (1811-1888) was born in Leirren, Belgium. He was a professor at the Antwerp Academy from 1841 to 1854. His work was shown in Antwerp and at the Royal Academy, London, between 1846 and 1869. He was a genre painter, firstly a pupil of Theilemans and Vervoort, then of Wappers. His painstakingly detailed pictures, often inspired by Dutch 17th-century art, earned him the soubriquet ‘The Belgian Gerard Dou’.

This elderly lace-maker is a tribute to a range of Dutch Old Masters (Nicolaes Maes and Caspar Netscher as well as Gerrit Dou). Dyckmans often shows single figures, usually women, engaged in some domestic activity. It is a variant of the picture, signed and dated 1844, which was sold at Christies, 19 March 1993. There are paintings of a similar old woman, with her cat, sewing, signed and dated 1843 (Phillip’s sale, 12 March 199), and spinning, signed and dated 1845 (Christie’s sale, 23 March 1976). As in 17th-century examples, industry is allied to piety (though in this case Catholic rather than Calvinist): a rosary is wrapped around a prayer book on the window ledge and an image of the Virgin stands on the wardrobe.