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Artist or Maker: Abel Grimmer (Antwerp c. 1570-1618/19)

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Provenance: with Robert Finck, Brussels, 1964 (Brussels, Grand Palais, Tableaux de Maîtres du XVe au XXe siècle, 1964, nos. 15-16.

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Notes: In the first picture of the present lot, Christ is shown disputing with two Pharisees near a village as the disciples walk through a wheatfield below, holding wheat they have picked. Christ's dispute with the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath is told in Matthew XII: 1-8. In the second, Christ is shown telling the parable of the Grape Harvesters to two Pharisees near a village, while beyond the parable itself is enacted with the Lord of the vineyard pointing as his son and heir was cast out of the vineyard and slain. The parable is told in Matthew XXI: 33-45. The two scenes also depict the month of August with the wheat harvest and that of October with the vendage.

The present pictures are versions of compositions, the earliest of which by Grimmer, in rectangular format, are of 1592; the compositions derive from designs by Hans Bol engraved by Adriaen Collaert, as pointed out by R. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Jacob et Abel Grimmer, Catalogue Raisonné, Belgium, 1991, pp. 190-97, and figs. 84 and 86. In the same series, the parable of the Grape Harvesters also illustrated the month of March. A pair similar to the present lot, but slightly smaller, is dated 1606 (see Bertier de Sauvigny, no. L11). Whether it and the present lot were originally designed as an independent set or as part of a series of the twelve months must remain uncertain.

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