Jacob Grimmer

With Robert Finck, Brussels;
From whom acquired by the father of the present owner at the Salon des Antiquaires, Brussels, in March 1966.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. Structural Condition The panel has four horizontal joins which have been strengthened with inserts on the reverse. The panel edge is beveled. The upper horizontal join is slightly open with minor losses along the line and does require localised consolidation. There is a small area of flaking paint in the lower left of the composition and a small paint loss in the lower right, which is approximately 14 cm above the lower horizontal framing edge and 60 cm in from the right vertical framing edge. Paint Surface The paint surface has a very discoloured varnish layer and should be transformed by cleaning. I would be very confident of a considerable colour change as a result of cleaning. Inspection under ultraviolet light is inconclusive due to the very discoloured nature of the varnish layers which have become opaque making it very difficult to assess the extent of retouching beneath these old varnish layers. The retouchings that are identifiable under ultraviolet light are limited to small areas in the dark pigments just above the lower horizontal framing edge and other very small scattered retouchings. There would appear to be old retouchings in the pale pigments of the snow which do not fluoresce under ultraviolet light but have slightly discoloured and other small retouchings. The fine detail of the painting would appear to be remarkably well preserved. Summary The painting therefore appears to be in good and stable condition and should respond well to cleaning, restoration and revarnishing.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This remarkable winter landscape belongs to a tradition of panoramic Northern landscape painting led by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  Grimmer was a contemporary of Bruegel's and much influenced by his style and innovations.  Earlier landscape painting, exemplified by artists such as Patinir, had focused on the depiction of detailed, decorative landscapes with high horizons but Bruegel, and subsequently Grimmer, chose instead to depict realistic and recognisably Flemish landscapes.

Grimmer's decision to set the traditional biblical narrative of the Massacre of the Innocents in a contemporary Flemish village with identifiable peasant types was an innovation influenced by Bruegel.  Unlike Pieter Bruegel the Elder's brutal and dramatic interpretation of this subject, Grimmer's painting is dominated by the frozen landscape and the narrative takes second place.  Vasari described Grimmer as one of the best landscape painters of his time.¹  Here the majority of the painted surface is dominated by his characteristic understanding of perspective and panorama, his use of simples colour tones and carefully delineated, sparsely foliated trees.  The armed soldiers in the foreground occupy centre stage but they are mostly mounted and stationary and one has to look closely to see the biblical tragedy unfolding. The figures of Joseph, Mary and Jesus fleeing in the background upper left are tiny and easily overlooked.  Whilst Gillis Mostaert often painted the figures in Grimmer's landscapes the hand here has not been identified.  The figures are carefully drawn and whilst clearly influenced by Bruegel's figure types they are independently imagined; for example, the figure of the mother vomiting in horror lower right is not recognisable in any of Bruegel's compositions.

Although the scene is taken from Matthew II:6 the village bloodshed depicted here was an all too present reality in the Spanish Netherlands in the late 1560s.  In 1567 Phillip II of Spain appointed the Duke of Alba Governor General of the Netherlands and sent him with an army of 12,000 men to deal with the heretical protestant movements.  His arrival led to such violent suppression that his rule became known as the "Reign of Blood" and contemporary Dutch accounts speak of over 18,000 people killed.²  Furthermore Grimmer, like Bruegel, would have had direct experience of the frozen scene he depicts after experiencing the particularly harsh winter of 1554-5 when it was so cold that icebergs from the North Sea entered Delshaven harbour near Rotterdam.

We are grateful to Jan de Maere for confirming Grimmer's authorship of the landscape on the basis of a photograph.  He thinks that the staffage is by another hand, though not by Grimmer's frequent collaborator, Gillis Mostaert.

1. G. Vasari: Vite (1550, rev. 2/1568); ed. G. Milanesi (1878–85), vii, p. 586.
2. J. Israel, The Dutch Republic: its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477-1806, Oxford 1995, pp. 159-160.