Old Master Drawings

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Lot 82
  • 82

Friedrich Brentel Lauingen 1580 - 1651 Strasburg

Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
bidding is closed

Description

  • Friedrich Brentel
  • the tribute money
  • signed, lower left margin: F Brentel, and date, lower right margin: 1639
  • gouache on vellum, heightened with gold, within gold and black borders

Catalogue Note

See note to the previous lot.  The subject of this gouache is the biblical episode (Matthew 22:21) when the Paharisees attempt to trick Jesus by asking him whether or not to pay taxes to the Emperor, to which they received the famous reply:  "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's." 

Brentel has taken his composition from the print by Jacques Callot (Meaume no. 1426), from a series of depictions of New Testament Subjects which was published in an incomplete form in 1635, after Callot’s death.  Two more gouaches by Brentel after prints from the same series are known1, as well as various other compositions taken from prints by Callot.


1. Christ and the Pharisees, sold, Paris, Christie’s, 18 March 2004, lot 189, and The Sermon on the Mount, sold, London, Christie’s, 4 July 2000, lot 60