Oil on canvas. Flemish school of XVII19th century, attributed to Daniel van Heil.
So realistic is the scene, and so heightened is the dramatic intensity, that the viewer can almost hear the flames crackling as they devour the houses and smell the acrid odor of smoke pervading the air. At first glance, because fire scenes are what made his reputation, one inevitably thinks of Daniel van Heil. And upon closer examination of the composition, his distinctive style becomes evident, and his figures are recognizable by their particular typology.
A crowd of figures bustles about in the foreground, some with buckets to extinguish the fire, others trying to salvage what they can. To the right and left, women raise their arms to the sky, invoking the divine to protect them from this calamity.
The presence of a classical temple at the center of the composition inevitably evokes the famous fires of Antiquity, such as that of Troy caused by the Greek invasion or that of Rome for which the emperor Nero is held responsible.

The painting is set in a blackened wooden frame with guilloché patterns.
Dimensions: 77 x 64 cm – 92 x 80 with the frame

Biography :
Daniel van Heil (Brussels 1604 – Brussels 1662) was a Flemish artist. Nothing is known of the apprenticeship of the son of the painter Leo van Heil, but it is known that he was admitted as a master to the Guild of Saint Luke in Brussels in 1627. Of the six pupils trained in his workshop, four would later become masters themselves. His brothers, Leo and Jan-Baptist, and his son Theodore were also painters. Praised during his lifetime, Daniel is known for his compositions depicting fires, snowy landscapes, or landscapes with ancient ruins, which he used as pretexts to illustrate mythological scenes (the Fall of Troy, the Flight of Aeneas with his father) in which he delighted in creating vivid contrasts of light. His landscapes are often winter scenes where he liked to contrast the white of the snow with the ochre tones of the earth. He does the same by contrasting the cold grays of night with the orange-yellows of the flames in his nocturnal fire scenes. The different genres explored by Daniel van Heil demonstrate a clear sense of composition and meticulous craftsmanship.

References:
– BROWN Christopher, Dutch Landscape, the early years, Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590 – 1650, National Gallery, 1986.
– THIERY Yvonne, Flemish Landscape Painters XVII19th century, the Antwerp Baroque and the Brussels school.
– DE MAERE Jan, WABBES M, Illustrated dictionary of 17th century Flemish painters, La Renaissance du livre, 1994
– Collective work, Die Flämische Landschaft 1520 – 1700, catalogue of the exhibition at the Kulturstiftung Ruhr museum in Essen (23.08 to 30.11.2003) then at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (23.12.2003 to 12.04.2004).
– TAPIE Alain, WEEMANS Michel, Fables of the Flemish landscape, (exh. cat. Lille, Palais des beaux-arts, 6 October 2012-14 January 2013), Paris, Somogy, 2012.
– GIBSON Walter S., Mirror of the Earth?: the World Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting, Princeton, Princeton University press, 1989.