Alive
Painted before 1590. A man is ploughing the near field with two horses. Another walks the edge with his apron full of seed. Behind the hedge the village is busy. A boat crosses the water, barrels are rolled into a shed, sheep come down the road, and a garden is laid out in neat beds. The tree on the right is still bare, so this is early in the year. The panel is small, 43 cm by 61, oil on oak. Nobody knows who made it. Catalogues call it a follower of Jacob Grimmer, which means it came out of his circle rather than his hand. It sold in Stockholm in 2013 for 240,000 kronor. Grimmer worked in Antwerp and made a business out of the calendar. He sold sets of the four seasons and the twelve months, painted by a big workshop at a standard size. He wrote comic verse as well, and belonged to the city's guild of poets. A painter that busy leaves a lot of look-alikes behind him.
look closer
Two horses and a wheeled plough turn the near field. The whole picture is built around this one strip of broken earth.
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