Beschreibung:

Details
ABEL GRIMMER (ANVERS VERS 1575-VERS 1619)
Paysage d'hiver avec patineurs et trappe aux oiseaux
huile sur panneau
16,6 x 25 cm. (6 1/2 x 9 7/8 in.)
Provenance
Galerie Florence de Voldère, Paris ; d'où acquis par le père des actuels propriétaires en mars 2005.
Post lot text
ABEL GRIMMER, WINTER LANDSCAPE WITH SKATERS AND A BIRD TRAP, OIL ON PANEL
This painting by Abel Grimmer (c. 1575-c. 1619) is a version of the famous composition Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap of 1565 by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), now held in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels (inv. no. 8274).
Following the success of Brueghel’s prime, the artist's Antwerp dynasty took up this now famous subject, increasing its popularity. Behind this seemingly carefree winter scene of a northern village is a more complex message; the bird trap in the lower right-hand corner can be activated at any time by the birdwatcher hidden in one of the houses, a reminder of the fragility human existence and our inescapable destiny. This idea is further underlined by the villagers sporting on the ice, which could crack beneath them at any moment.
This painting can therefore be understood not as a landscape but as a vanitas, to which Abel Grimmer has given, to quote Reine de Bertier de Sauvigny, "his own personal style". Comparing the present painting to Jan Brueghel the Younger's Bird Trap, Bertier de Sauvigny commented on its skilfully blended colours and the simpler design in which the tree branches are less tangled; prior to her death, she had intended to include it in the addendum to her 1991 catalogue raisonné.
A number of variants of this Breugelian image are found in Grimmer's work. Amongst others Bertier de Sauvigny cites a Winter Landscape, (Private collection), with a wooden bowl in the lower right-hand corner, and a Winter painting with Flight into Egypt, in which the religious motif replaces the bird trap (R. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Jacob et Abel Grimmer Catalogue raisonné, Bruxelles, 1991, "Tableaux d’hivers", n°12 and 18).
A copy of the certificate of authenticity written by Reine de Bertier de Sauvigny and dated 28 September 2003 will be given to the buyer of the painting.