The Tax Collectors

The prototype for this picture is in the Liechtenstein Collection, Vaduz. Previously known only through photographs, it was taken for a copy and, when it resurfaced on the art market in 2008, was attributed to a ‘Follower of Marinus van Reymerswaele’. Recent scholarship, however, has confirmed the painting to be an autograph work by Quinten Metsys. The composition enjoyed considerable popularity in the 16th century and numerous, somewhat varying versions survive, including the celebrated Tax Gatherers by Marinus van Reymerswaele in the National Gallery, London. All may have been inspired by a lost original by Jan van Eyck, described by Marcantonio Michiel as ‘El quadretto a meze figure, del patron che fa conto cun el fattor fo de man de Zuan Heic, credo Memelino, Ponetino, fatto nel 1440’ when he encountered it in the collection of Camillo and Niccolò Lampognano in Milan in about 1520.