Joachim Anthonisz. Wtewael Utrecht 1566 - 1638

Possibly inherited from the artist by his daughter, Antoinetta Wtewael (1603-1655), who married Johan Pater (1595-1642) and recorded in their estate in 1656 ('noch een stuckje van Grootvader vander keyser schattings te geven' [a piece by Grandfather of giving the emperor tribute]);
Possibly inherited by their daughter, Aletta Pater (1641-1725), who married Jacob Martens (1636-1693), and recorded in an inventory of their property made 1 January 1669, no. 7 ('Een keijsers schattinge ende Christus int kleijn op een kopere plaetjen door Joachim Wttewael' [An emperor's tribute and Christ in small on a copper plate by Joachim Wttewael]);
Inherited by the late owner from his father in England in 1947.

This beautifully preserved and hitherto unpublished copper is an important addition to the œuvre of Holland's most refined Mannerist painter.  The picture is almost certainly identifiable with one listed in the estate of the artist's daughter, Antoinetta, in 1656 and subsequently described in the collection of his grand-daughter, Aletta, in 1669.

Wtewael's small-scale paintings of 'historical' subjects on copper are extremely rare. Lowenthal listed fewer than twenty-five autograph works in her 1986 catalogue raisonné although a handful have subsequently come to light  (see A.W. Lowenthal, Joaquim Wtewael and Dutch Mannerism, Doornspijk 1986).  Most examples of such pictures were painted in the first decade of the 17th century and from circa 1610 onwards Wtewael seems almost exclusively to have used panel or canvas supports; the latest exception hitherto known being the Wedding of Peleus and Thetis, dated 1612, sold in these Rooms, 11 April 1990, lot 19.  The date of 1616 on the present picture shows that Wtewael continued to paint highly-refined, small-scale compositions on copper well into the second decade of the century.  The use of the figure seen from behind on the left of the composition as a framing element is a device that the artist employed on other occasions; for example in his Diana and Actaeon of 1607 in the Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna (see Lowenthal, op. cit., p. 121, cat. no. A-46, reproduced plate 64 and in colour plate XIII).

This is the artist's only treatment of this subject, which is related in three of the Gospels (Matthew 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26).  When teaching in the Temple at Jerusalem, Christ was asked by the Pharisees whether it was right to pay taxes to Rome, in the hope that his response would lay him open to accusation either by the Roman authorities or those of the Jews who resented paying the tax.  In answer, Christ pointed to the effigy of the emperor on a coin saying, 'Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's'.