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There are branded artists whose fame overshadows their own works, and works that ‘devour’ their artists. This is the case of an iconic painting, ‘The money changer and his wife’, reproduced ad nauseam in high school books and economics manuals, but whose author very few know. There is hardly any data from his biography. It is believed that he was born around 1489 and died around 1546/1556. He began his career in Antwerp, which in the 16th century was a flourishing arts and commercial market. It also doesn’t help that his name is difficult to pronounce: Marinus van Reymerswale. The surname is the place name of his hometown (in the province of Zealand, southwest of Holland), devastated by floods and abandoned in the 17th century. Today it does not exist. Only a few of this painter are preserved 26 known works, which he made in just a decade (from 1533 to 1543). Five of them are in The meadow: they have been restored and a technical study has been carried out.
The art gallery vindicates this enigmatic artist –Whose figure was rediscovered in the 19th century– in a small exhibition, which collect ten of his paintings, in addition to the publication of the first monograph on the painter. The project started from Christine Seidel, today curator of the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie, which a few years ago was a grant holder of the María Cristina Masaveu Peterson Foundation at the Prado and is the curator of the exhibition. The experience has been so fruitful that the museum has decided to institutionalize a two-year scholarship for young researchers, which will culminate with an exhibition around the Prado collection.
There are several characteristics of Marinus’ work: drawing precision, an exquisite hand… The most obvious, the repeat themes: tax collectors or money changers, Saint Jerome in his cell, scenes from the New Testament and the Virgin and Child. He made replicas and copies of the images using grids. On the other hand, his references to two great masters: Quentin Massys –It is believed that Marinus could have worked in his workshop– and Durero. Thus, the ‘Last Judgment’ of the latter (one of the engravings present in the sample) is included by Marinus in a Bible present in ‘Saint Jerome in his cell’. In addition, in his works he paints real objects from his environment, such as coins and account books and manuscripts. In ‘The money changer and his wife’, whose protagonists portray caricature, dressed eccentrically, coins are identified as the Kite the Carlos V., in silver. These and other coins from the National Archaeological Museum are exhibited in a glass case. As for the books and manuscripts that appear in his paintings, the texts (fiscal, legal and religious) have been transcribed and published in the catalog.
The works of Marinus have had numerous interpretations. Some see in them a moralizing goal. The job of money changer is usually associated with greed, greed, usury… From the National Library, two books are exhibited (‘Espejo de la vida humana’, by Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo, and ‘La nave de los focios’, by Sebastian Brant), in which temptations and the sinful behaviors of worldly life.
In addition to the five works in the Prado, there are as many from the Thyssen Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent (in both cases, ‘The vocation of Saint Matthew’), the Academy of Fine Arts (‘Saint Jerome in his cell’, of 1533, his first known signed and dated work), the Louvre and the Hermitage (with each ‘Tax Collectors’). And good news. In the middle of the pandemic, it joins the Prado a new sponsor, Mitsubishi, which joins the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado as a benefactor of the exhibition.
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