Aside from the fact that he was a painter’s son, little is know about the life of the 16th-century Netherlands painter Marinus van Reymerswale. Yet his dated works, from the years 1533 to 1545, remain. Many are depictions of bankers and tax collectors—members of Antwerp’s powerful financial class—and, indeed, a theme of transaction, whether material or spiritual, seems pervasive in these paintings. Figures are enveloped in warm colors and contexts, an intermingling of temperate reds and browns, but their unbeautiful features and spindly fingers are reminiscent of goblins and demons. In the first monographic exhibition of Marinus’s work, 10 paintings, three never before seen in Spain, are on view. —E.C.

Marinus: Painter from Reymerswale
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Museo Nacional del Prado / Madrid / Art
Museo Nacional del Prado / Madrid / Art
Marinus van Reymerswale, “The City Treasurer (so-called Two Tax Collectors),” c.1530. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.
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