Two boys blowing bubbles

Two Boys Blowing Bubbles is a painting by the seventeenth-century Walloon artist Michaelina Wautier. It has been suggested that the painting is a double portrait, given the specific facial expressions and costumes of the two boys depicted are so distinctive. Besides the two boys, the painting depicts a candle and a sandtimer. As with the bubble, both are symbolic of the passing of time, and were familiar motifs in seventeenth-century painting.The painting was previously attributed to Jacob van Oost. However, research done in 2007 led to the re-attribution to Wautier.The painting hangs in the Seattle Art Museum who purchased it in 1958. A second version by Wautier is in a private collection in Spain. A third painting, executed in the eighteenth century and copying just the boy on the right, is in the Collection des Musee d'Amiens, France.