Reymerswale, Marinus van Lot n° 8

Marinus van Reymerswale 1490/95 Reimerswaal - 1546/56 Goes The Money-Lender Oil on panel. 80.5 x 54.5 cm. Provenance With Adam Williams / Newhouse Galleries, New York. Literature Peter Van der Coelen and Friso Lammertse (eds.): De ontdekking van het dagelijks leven van Bosch tot Bruegel, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, exhib. cat. Rotterdam 2015, p.112, fig. 106; About the artist cf. Max J. Friedländer: Die altniederländische Malerei, vol. XII, Leiden 1935, pp. 69-76. Marinus van Reymerswale was an enigmatic artist in more ways than one. Securely attributed works of his hand are just as scarce as biographical details of his life. We know only that he was born around 1490 in Reimerswaal in the province of Zeeland; in 1504 he was enrolled as a ""poor student"" at the University of Leuven and in 1509 he stayed in Antwerp with Quinten Massys. Marinus is then documented as a painter and cartographer in Reimerswaal, his birthplace, in 1531 and later around 1540 he moved to Goes, where he died in 1556 at the latest. In 1604, Karel van Mander wrote in his schilder-boeck that many works by Reymerswale were to be seen in Zeeland and mentioned one with the title A Customs Officer in his Office. Works such as these are still considered the main domain of the painter to this day. For apart from his famous Saint Jerome in His Study, two small panels with depictions of the Virgin, and The Calling of Saint Matthew, Reymerswale only ever painted interior scenes showing customs officers, tax collectors and money changers conducting their dubious business. Van Reymerswale became acquainted with the genre, the so called Kontorbild, during his time with Quinten Massys. However, the persistence and exclusivity with which he pursued this