Lot 9: JACOB GRIMMER

JACOB GRIMMER ANTWERP 1525/6 - 1590 PEASANTS WITH A HORSE DRAWN WAGON ON A COUNTRY ROAD, A VIEW OF A VILLAGE BEYOND oil on panel, circular diameter: 17 cm.

Paris, Galerie Heim-Gairac, Exposition de Paysages Flamands "Herri met de Bles a Jan Breughel", 18 April - 15 May 1953, no. 4 (as by Hans Bol).

Gabriele d'Annunzio (1863-1938), Principe di Montenevoso, Italy (according to a label on the reverse);
With Galerie Heim-Gairac, 1953;
Henri Leroux, Paris, no. 112;
His sale, Paris, Palais Gallièra, 23 March 1968, lot 24 (as attributed to Hans Bol).

The refinement and delicacy of this charming little panel well illustrates Grimmer's talent for working on a small scale. Indeed, as early as 1604, Grimmer was praised by Carel van Mander in his Schilder-Boeck for his skies and fidelity to nature. He even made the claim that he knew of no other who was so outstandingly skilled in depicting landscapes.υ1

Grimmer was primarily renowned for his paintings of detailed, naturalistic landscapes and rural scenery, mainly in the region of Antwerp, where he became a Master of the Guild in 1547. The conspicuous simplicity of his somewhat naive depictions of the countryside is reminiscent in a simpler form of the compositional schemes of his contemporaries such as Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526-1569) and Hans Bol (1534-1593).

The circular format was one he particularly favoured and often forms part of a series of the Four Seasons or of the Months of the Year, such as the months of July and August in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy (inv. nos. 133-4)υ2, or the months of December, January, February and October, sold, London, Christie's, 13 December 2000, lots 1-4. In the present work, however, there is no direct reference to illustrate a certain month or season, which makes it more likely that this panel was conceived as a pure landscape in its own right.

1. C. van Mander, Het Schilder-Boek, 1604, [reprint] Amsterdam 1936, pp. 141-2.
2. See R. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Jacob et Abel Grimmer, Brussels 1991, p. 100, cat. no. 8, reproduced pp. 102-3, figs. 45-6.