(Antwerp circa 1570 – circa 1620)
An elegant loggia with the Proposal of Isaac to Rebecca,
indistinctly signed and dated lower right: AB. GR.16..,
oil on panel, 74.5 x 96.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Sir George Leon Murray Marx;
Collection A. J. Sully;
with Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., London;
acquired from the latter by Mr and Mrs Timothy Lewis (circa 1977);
Private collection, United Kingdom, until 2008

Literature:
R. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Jacob et Abel Grimmer, Brussels 1991, p. 238, no. LXXXI, pl. 119

The present painting illustrates the diversity of the oeuvre of Abel Grimmer, who was celebrated for his naturalistic views of the Flemish countryside with farmhouses and peasants. While the composition of a large building to the left with the perspectival recession of a loggia is typical of the artist’s cityscapes (such as The Marketplace of Bergen op Zoom, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.), the structure’s fantastic tracery and the antique costumes of the foreground figures lend themselves to a biblical setting. Juxtaposed to these are a realistic but compacted flock of sheep and a milling herd of cattle, shadowed by the palace and arranged subtly on the same plane.

In the Old Testament account from the book of Genesis, the widowed Abraham sends his servant to Haran, the land of his ancestors, to find a young girl worthy of his son Isaac. Arriving at a well, the servant meets Rebecca- the young woman prophesised. Rebecca presents the servant to her brother Laban and to her father Bethuel, a wealthy landowner. The servant asks for Rebecca’s hand in marriage on behalf of Isaac. Grimmer portrays this proxy marriage in the centre, where a figure holds his turban in his left hand and offers a bag of silver with his right as dowry for the future bride’s brother. Servants and soldiers take up various attitudes.