The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

The Parable of the Tribute Money

The Parable of the Tribute Money

c. 1580–1600
(Netherlandish, 1480-1620)
Netherlands, late 16th Century
Pen and brown ink, traces of pen and black ink and black chalk, on paper; framing lines in brown ink
Sheet: 27.2 x 35.4 cm (10 11/16 x 13 15/16 in.)
Dudley P. Allen Fund 1992.115
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The pose of the kneeling man and the decoration of the door surround in this drawing are both based on details in a woodcut made earlier in the century by the German artist Albrecht Dürer.

Description

The New Testament parable of the tribute money addresses the division between worldly and divine power. Here, the artist depicted Christ in the center of a civic square with one hand pointing toward a king wearing a crown and an ermine robe and the other toward God above. Encouraged by Christ’s words to show each authority its due, the crowd shows deference to both the king and God via facial expression, pose, and gesture. Parables were enduringly popular on prints, stained glass, and decorative objects for their relevance to the issues and choices made by everyday citizens.
  • ?-1992
    Private collection, Germany (unidentified collector's mark: PMG (not in Lugt)
    1992
    with Thomas Le Claire Kunsthandel, Hamburg, 1992
    1992
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Thomas Le Claire Kunsthandel VIII: Master Drawings 1500-1900, exh. cat. by Thomas Le Claire (New York, 1992). cat. no. 8
    Turner, Evan. "The Year in Review for 1992." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38-79. 73, no. 249
    Dunbar, Burton L., and Edward J. Olszewski (Beraldi). Drawings in Midwestern Collections: A Corpus. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996. 53-54, no. 32
    Peters, Emily J., Laura Ritter, William Griswold, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, and Koenraad Jonckheere. Tales of the City: Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel. Cleveland, OH : Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 251-252, no. 79
  • Tales of the City: Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (October 9, 2022-January 8, 2023).
    Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993).
  • {{cite web|title=The Parable of the Tribute Money|url=false|author=Master of the Egmont Albums|year=c. 1580–1600|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1992.115