Manner of Abel Grimmer

In the collection of the family of the present owners for at least two generations.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: The six individual panels are uncradled. Three of the panels have a vertical strip of canvas supporting a split/join in the panel. The panels are all secure. The paint surfaces are secure and have reasonably even varnish layers. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows small scattered retouchings on the six panels and thin lines of retouchings where there are joins/splits in the panels. Overall the paintings are in good condition. The six individual panels are framed.
"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."

These panels might once have made up a complete set of the Twelve months of the year, deriving from the landscape-format series by Abel Grimmer, signed and dated 1592, today in the church of Notre-Dame, in Montfaucon.¹ The scenes are taken from a series of drawings by Hans Bol of The Months of the Year with scenes from the Life of Christ (including the twelve signs of the zodiac), engraved by Adriaen Collaert and published by Aegidius Sadeler in 1585.² Following the medieval calendrical tradition, combining the sacred with the secular and contemporary, this was one of Grimmer's most well-known and popular cycles. The artist treated these compositions a number of times in several, now largely dispersed, series of panels, often as roundels.³ 

The subjects represented here are: January – The Dream of Joseph and the Flight into Egypt; February – The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew; April – The Parable of the Sower; June – Christ the Good Shepherd; July – Christ and the Woman of Samaria; November – The Parable of the Wedding Banquet.

1. R. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Jacob et Abel Grimmer. Catalogue raisonné, Brussels 1991, pp. 190 and 197, cat. no. III, reproduced pp. 191–96, figs. 77–88.
2. Cabinet des Estampes, Paris; see New Hollstein, The Collaert Dynasty, vol. II, Rotterdam 2005, cat. nos 225-237.
3. See for example, the series of six, sold Paris, Sotheby's, 17 June 2015, lot 59, for €819,000; or the series of five, offered London, Christie's, 2 December 2008, lot 8.