PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Italy; Julius Weitzner, London, 1958; BJU, 1958.

Jan van Amstel may have been the brother of the painter Pieter Aersten. Amstel was acclaimed as a landscape artist, but he also painted small figural works, such as this one. Since there are no surviving documented works by van Amstel, he is usually identified as the Brunswick Monogrammist based on the initials "JVAMSL" found on The Feeding of the Poor in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick.

In this painting, van Amstel adds several new elements to a popular 16th-century theme. Sixteenth-century renderings of Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the dome of the martyrium are present in the setting, along with the crossing dome of the Crusader church. Van Amstel also adds a Renaissance-style portico over the stairs.