Lot 178: JACOB GRIMMER

JACOB GRIMMER ANTWERP 1525/6 - 1590 TOWNSCAPE WITH SKATERS ON A FROZEN RIVER oil on panel 32 by 45 cm. ; 12 5/8 by 17 3/4 in.

Venice, Mostra Nazionale Antiquaria, July-September 1947, no. 114, as Peter Brueghel.

Jacob Grimmer broke with the landscape tradition established by Joachim Patenir in the early sixteenth century. Grimmer painted scenes of the villages and farmhouses around him, rather than the panoramic views more frequently depicted by his predecessors. He was lavishly praised by both Vasari and Van Mander, and his works have a vitality and charm that has endured through the centuries.

Although winter scenes were among Grimmer's favorite subjects, the Townscape with Skaters on a Frozen River is an unusual and particularly engaging representation of the theme. In most paintings Grimmer chooses a somewhat elevated vantage point and presents a flat, uninterrupted view from foreground to background. Here, the buildings and buttressed wall completely block our vision so that apart from glimpses of the town at the far left and right, we cannot see beyond the middle distance. In the foreground are skaters and kolfers playing on the frozen river, their bright red caps and pants contrasting with the muted tones of their surroundings. This combination of skaters set in front of a long wall may have been prompted by Pieter Brueghel's Ice Skating Before the Gate of St. George, which was engraved by Frans Huys in about 1558. However, Grimmer takes the device further, focusing our attention on the architecture. The beauty of the composition is in his depiction of snow-covered buildings, their pinkish-tan walls set off by the gray-green sky behind, and balancing this, the thin dark silhouettes of the bare trees.