Circle of Abel Grimmer (Antwerp c.1570-1618/9)

The subject is taken from Genesis (11:1-9) which recounts how the people decided to 'build ourselves a city and a tower, with its top in the heavens' and appointed Nimrod - 'the mighty warrior before the Lord'- to oversee its construction. This account provided a rich source of subject matter for several late 16th and early 17th century Flemish painters whose representations of it were inspired ultimately by the two iconic eponymous works of 1563 by Pieter Breughel the Elder (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; and Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans-Van Beuningen).