Antwerp ca. 1570 – Antwerp ca. 1620
A Landscape with view of a Village and Festivities in a Garden
Oil on panel
H. 21,5 cm. W. 44 cm.
PROVENANCE
Private collection
REFERENCE LITERATURE
Bertier de Sauvigny, R. de (1991). Jacob et Abel Grimmer catalogue raisonné. Brussels
CATALOGUE NOTE
Abel was the son of the landscape painter Jacob Grimmer (ca. 1526 – ca. 1590) and Lucia van den Wouwer. He was trained in the workshop of his father. Jacob made a significant contribution to the Netherlandish landscape tradition and is credited with being one of the first painters to break with the panoramic format that had been pioneered by his predecessor, Joachim Patinir. Jacob had established a name for himself by imitating the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Abel’s earliest known dated work dates to 1586. Abel married in Antwerp on 29 September 1591 to Catharina Lescornet of the family of goldsmiths Lescornet. He bacame ‘wijnmeester’ (master by patrimony) in the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp in 1592. He took over his father’s workshop and worked his whole career in the city of Antwerp. Abel perpetuated the family’s prestigious legacy in the landscape tradition. He ran one of the most prosperous and acclaimed studios in Antwerp at the turn of the seventeenth century, producing hundreds of works inspired by the example of his father, Bruegel the Elder and Hans Bol, whose popular compositions he modified and revitalised. He is recorded as the master of Anthoni de Ridder in 1597 but may well have trained more pupils. Abel died between September 1618 and September 1619, as the death-duties of Abel Grimmer’s widow were met between September 1618 and September 1619.
Abel Grimmer is chiefly celebrated today for his lively small paintings of country scenes, of which the present picture is a fine example. These works often form part of a series depicting the Four Seasons or the Twelve Months of the year. The tradition of these series can be traced to the cycle of The Months by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, dated 1565 (e.g. see: Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; Prague, Narodni Galerie; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). The composition of the present picture, with its high viewpoint, prominent foreground and receding landscape in the back, is characteristic of Abel Grimmer. The same goes for the apparent naivety of the scenes, which are depicted with great animation and liveliness.