Estimate

20.000 - 30.000

Session

29 September 2011

Hammer Price

Description

Allegory of working life versus the contemplative life or the dance of Mary Magdalene
Unknow artist, Netherlands, circa 1620
Oil on oak wood
74x104cm

Additional Information

As the Protestant movement arises in flemish lands the representation of allegories confronting the two ways of living quickly gained importance. On one side there was the lavish pleasures confronting the virtuous and contemplative life following the example of Christ.
In the early 17th century flemish painters found this the perfect theme to fulfil the desires of the public that can easily hang on the wall the moral represenation of the new religion and of course a double victory: the moral life above the lavish decadent one and of the new religion.