The Chamberlain's Baptism

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The baptism of the chamberlain (Rembrandt van Rijn)
The Chamberlain's Baptism
Rembrandt van Rijn , 1626
Oil on oak
63.5 × 48.0 cm
Catharijneconvent Museum , Utrecht

The Baptism of the Chamberlain or The Baptism of the Eunuch , more rarely The Baptism of the Man from Ethiopia , is an oil painting by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn from 1626. It shows the baptism of the eunuch the Kandake by Philip , one of the seven deacons , from Chapter 8 of the Acts of the Apostles by Luke . The painting isexecutedin portrait format on oak and shows elements of several landscape format paintings by Pieter Lastman on the same subject. In doing so, Rembrandt arranged the borrowed parts in a new picture composition and condensed them clearly compared to the templates of his master. The painting was completely unknown to art historical research when it was found in a private living room in 1974. Due to numerous similarities and similarities with features of other pictures from Rembrandt's early work, the picture has since been consistently recognized as an original by Rembrandt's hand.

description

Condition framed, at the beginning of the restoration, 1976
Close-up of the signature, during restoration, 1976

presentation

In the center of the foreground kneels as the foremost of seven staggered figures, a black man wearing an ermine cloak over a purple robe and a white waist band over it. His hair is black, short and curly, and he seems to have a thin goatee and whiskers. He wears a gold pendant on his left ear and a gold ring on his right thumb. His left knee rests on the floor and his right leg is bent with his foot on the floor. The man faces the left foreground with his hands crossed in front of his chest, so that his vertex is in the center of the picture and his right upper arm follows the picture diagonal to the bottom left.

To the left of the center of the picture stands a tall white man with a thinning fringe of hair and a long gray beard, who is dressed in a light brown robe and over it wears an orange bandage and a purple cloak. He looks down at the black man's head and makes a blessing gesture with his right hand, which in the context must be seen as a baptism gesture.

Another black man crouches behind the person to be baptized, who looks significantly younger and also has short black hair. He wears a gray-green robe with lavish green and yellow patterns on the hem and a green cloak. His robe is closed on the right shoulder with a golden fibula and he wears a large ring on his left ear. He attentively observes the baptism and holds his master's turban made of blue and red fabric on his knees.

To the right of the center of the picture, but slightly offset to the background opposite the Baptist, stands an oriental with brown skin, a long blue robe and a turban-like white and purple headgear with a white feather. He holds a large open book in front of his stomach and looks at the viewer. Behind him, facing the right edge of the picture, stands an open carriage for two with a white man dressed in oriental clothes, with a whip on the driver's seat and another servant behind it. Again behind the two horses of the carriage there is a white rider, likewise dressed in oriental clothes, who is facing to the left and looks at the viewer like the two coachmen. He's carrying a quiver with arrows on his saddle, only the tail of his horse can be seen.

The left background is taken up by a palm tree rising to the top of the picture. On the right edge of the picture the view extends far into the distance, with towering dark rocks or the silhouette of a place in front of two hills. In the left foreground is a large brown and white dog that comes out from behind the Baptist and is drinking on the water of the river in the lower left corner of the picture. To the right of it, but still in the left foreground, are some herbs. The right foreground is free, here the painter has scratched an irregular structure into the paint with the wooden shaft of his brush. In the lower right corner there is a monogram and the date RH 1626 . The signature corresponds to other Rembrandt signatures from 1626.

Technical inspection

Infrared photography (left) and X-ray, before the restoration in 1976, the three wooden strips are glued to the back Infrared photography (left) and X-ray, before the restoration in 1976, the three wooden strips are glued to the back
Infrared photography (left) and X-ray, before the restoration in 1976, the three wooden strips are glued to the back
Back without frame, during restoration, 1976

The painting has the format 63.5 × 48 cm and is painted with oil paint on an approximately ten millimeter thick board made of Baltic oak with vertical grain. The board consists of two vertical boards, the left one is 23.6 cm (± 0.4 cm) wide. The back was planed with a concave blade that left wide vertical grooves. The edges are beveled on the back right to a width of 3.5 cm and the remaining edges to a width of 4 cm. At the time of discovery, the two parts of the painting were only held together by three narrow strips of wood glued on the back. They were not correctly aligned with one another and could no longer be put together precisely as a result of improper processing in the past. During the restoration from July to August 1976, they were glued together and missing wood up to 0.5 mm thick was added at the connection point. The wooden strips on the back have been removed. The dendrochronological investigation revealed the earliest possible year of use for the wooden panel, 1615, and an assumed creation of the painting from 1621.

The light yellow primer only emerges in a few places with a very thin application of paint, such as the corners of the book pages and in some places with damage to the paint layer. The first yellow-brown primer consists of lime and glue. As a second primer, white lead with dark brown and in some places black pigment was applied. The paint layer is in overall good condition, only a few areas show wear from excessive cleaning. In some places, such as in the trunk of the palm tree, on Phillips' shoulder and on the elbow of the kneeling servant, there was a loss of color due to nails protruding from the back. In a few places there is a fine crackle , in a few other places there are cracks due to the shrinking of the paint layer. During the restoration in 1976, an old layer of varnish was removed and replaced with a new one.

Infrared photography reveals a preliminary drawing in the sky that has been discarded and painted over. There should be an open umbrella, as in the Baptism of the Moor Chamberlain by the Apostle Philip, painted a few years earlier by Rembrandt's later teacher Pieter Lastman . The X-ray shows some of the changes Rembrandt made while working. So the wheel of the carriage was planned to be larger, its hub is lower on the X-ray than on the painting. Instead of the palm tree shown above on the left, a deciduous tree should be shown in the first draft. Image elements that were first applied to the already painted sky cannot be seen on the X-ray image. This applies to the palm and tail of the horse turned to the left.

Biblical background

The Baptism of the Eunuch , Pieter Lastman , 1615 to 1620, oil on panel, 63.5 × 98.8 cm, Fondation Custodia , Paris
The Baptism of the Chamberlain , Pieter Lastman, 1620, oil on oak, 70 × 104 cm, Alte Pinakothek , Munich
The Baptism of the Chamberlain by the Apostle Philip , Pieter Lastman, 1623, oil on oak, 85 × 115 cm, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

The biblical background of the painting is the baptism of the eunuch of Kandake by Philip , one of the seven deacons . The event is described at the end of chapter 8 of the Acts of the Apostles of Luke ( Acts 8,26-40  EU ). On his way back from Jerusalem, where he was worshiping God, the eunuch met the deacon Philip. The latter declares himself ready to explain the scriptures to the eunuch who reads the book of Isaiah. After telling the traveler the Christian doctrine using an example from the book, the chamberlain is ready to be baptized. He is the first Gentile Christian whose baptism is recorded in the Bible. Only after him was the Roman captain Cornelius baptized with his relatives ( Acts 10  EU ).

The baptism of the eunuch is of particular importance, since in the 5th book of Moses eunuchs were denied participation in the Jewish worship service ( 5 Mos 23,2  EU ). This was countered by the promise made to the strangers and childless in the book of Isaiah , in which they are announced that they will be accepted into the community ( Isa 56 : 3-5  EU ). In religious practice, even at the time of Jesus, the admission of a eunuch into the Jewish community was excluded. Contrary to isolated information in art historical publications, the eunuch could not have been a Jew, although he was able to worship God outside the temple . Isaiah's announcement is only realized with the baptism of the eunuch, not with the acceptance into the people of Israel, but with the acceptance into the Christian community.

The original Greek text describes the “ eunuch ” as εὐνοῦχος ( eunuchos ), ie as a eunuch . This is followed by the Vulgate with eunuchus , as well as the Geneva Bible and the King James Bible with eunuch . The term “eunuch” also found its way into Hope for All , the New Geneva Translation and the Good News Bible . Already in the Luther Bible of 1545 the person to be baptized is referred to as a man from Mohrenland, a chamberlain and mighty of Queen Kandaze in Mohrenland . The Luther Bible from 2017, the standard translation 2016 and the Schlachter Bible in the revisions of 1951 and 2000 also dispense with the term “eunuch” and call the person baptized a “chamberlain”. The term “man from Ethiopia”, on the other hand, is used only rarely and alternatively, for example in Hope for All and in the Luther Bible 2017.

Rembrandt's painting obviously depicts the act of baptism; unlike in the Bible, Philip and the eunuch did not go down into the river together, but are on its bank. In other representations of biblical scenes, Rembrandt did not stick to the text literally, for example in his painting Balaam and the Donkey , in which the angel does not block the path but appears from the clouds in the background. The baptism scene on dry land, however, does not go back to Rembrandt, but continues an iconographic tradition that was founded in the second half of the 16th century.

Art historical classification

Rembrandt's early work

After three and a half years of training with Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh , which he began in 1620 , Rembrandt went to Amsterdam in 1624 to study with Pieter Lastman for half a year . In 1625 he returned to Leiden and opened a workshop with Jan Lievens , who had also learned from Lastman. The christening of the chamberlain was influenced by his teacher Pieter Lastman, who a few years earlier had painted several christenings of the chamberlain himself. There are numerous parallels between Rembrandt's and Lastman's arrangements, such as the figure of Philip, the tree at the top left, the servant with the open book of Isaiah, the two-horse carriage with the servant and the coachman with a whip, the dog, and that of Rembrandt ultimately not realized Parasol over the carriage. Unlike in Balaam and the Donkey , Rembrandt only adopted the elements as suggestions for his own composition, without copying them exactly. But he again implemented scenes painted by Lastman in landscape format in his own work as portrait format. In addition, he has enriched the conography of the motif of the baptism of the eunuch, if not as much as in his Balaam . The art historian Volker Manuth has pointed out that the dog shown drinking at the bottom left, in contrast to the dogs in Lastman and his predecessors, is significant. Rembrandt's dog satisfies his physical needs with water, while the chamberlain uses the same medium to satisfy his emotional needs.

The baptism of the chamberlain fits in with a number of other early works by Rembrandt, which are very similar in the composition of the pictures, the execution of the individual figures and the choice of colors. Examples are Christ drives the money changers out of the temple from 1624 or 1625, Let the children come to me from 1625, Balaam and the donkey from 1626 and the music-making company from the same year. By Balaam and playing instruments company has baptism of Kämmerlings the format and structure of the wood panel together. The portrait of the servant behind the coachman, though more coarsely executed, is very similar to the harpist in Rembrandt's music-making company . The harpist was previously mistaken for a self-portrait by Rembrandt, but has now been identified with Jan Lievens. These similarities, the way of working, the undeniable signature and the results of technical investigations leave no doubt as to the authenticity of the work.

Lying horse , Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1626, red and black chalk, heightened with white, on yellow-orange primed paper, 15.3 × 20.6 cm, British Museum , London

In 2010, Martin Royalton-Kisch , curator of the British Museum for Prints and Drawings, connected a drawing of a reclining horse, previously assigned to an anonymous draftsman and later Jan Lievens, with Rembrandt and the baptism of the chamberlain . He pointed out similarities between the anatomically simplified representation in the drawing with the head of the right horse in Rembrandt's baptism of the chamberlain and the horses on his David handing Goliath's head over to King Saul . Such a resemblance does not exist with drawings that were certainly by Lievens and with one of his depictions of horses.

The Baptism of the Chamberlain in Christian Art

St. Phillip baptizes the eunuch , Jacob de Wit , 1748, oil on canvas, 215 × 108.5 cm, in chimney cladding made of mahogany and marble, 460 cm high

In early and medieval Christian art , the chamberlain's baptism does not play a significant role. It was not until the 16th century that the motif was shown more frequently in the Netherlands. The deacon Philip and the apostle Philip are occasionally confused, as in Dirck Crabeth's glass painting for the Sint Janskerk in Gouda from 1559. Some depictions are part of a comprehensive cycle of apostles, such as the copper engraving by Philipp Galle based on Maarten van Heemskerck from the Year 1582, which was printed with numerous other motifs as the 15th sheet of his Acta Apostolorum .

Written documents from the Calvinist Netherlands from the 17th to 18th centuries repeatedly highlight the contrast between the chamberlain’s black skin and the purity of his soul after being reborn through baptism. In Dutch art, the baptism of the chamberlain largely disappears soon after 1660. The motif became popular in Germany in the 18th century, and many depictions can be traced back to Rembrandt's pictorial compositions.

Rembrandt's further adaptations of the motif

The Baptism of the Eunuch , Rembrandt, 1641, etching and drypoint , 17.8 × 21.4 cm, Bartsch 98, second state, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

After the chamberlain was baptized, Rembrandt painted another picture with the motif in 1631 at the latest, which has only survived in copies. An exceptionally large etching by Jan Gillisz. van Vliet from 1631 reproduces the painting, at the bottom there is a reference to Rembrandt's design. A painted copy of an unknown successor from the 17th century, one of several copies of the painting, was in the collection of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg in Mecklenburg-Schwerin at the beginning of the 20th century and was auctioned off by Christie's in Amsterdam to an unknown buyer in 2008 . Another copy was also in the Oldenburg State Museum at the beginning of the 20th century and is now in the Dutch Kremer Collection .

A chalk drawing in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich is dated to around 1635; a connection with other works has not been proven. In 1641 Rembrandt made an etching in the format 17.8 × 21.4 cm, in which he came back to Lastman's pictorial composition. A drawing in pen and brown ink in the Louvre in Paris is considered the draft of this etching.

Another painting has been attributed to Rembrandt in the past, which embeds the baptismal scene in a spacious landscape. The landscape with the christening of the treasurer is now considered a work by Ferdinand Bol and is on loan from Pelikan AG in the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover . Three drawings of a different motif, all of which can be traced back to a lost work by Rembrandt, are in the copperplate cabinet of the Duke Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh and - with a slightly different composition - in the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge , Massachusetts .

reception

Hanging in the living room of the last private owner, 1974

The Dutch art historian Henri LM Defoer published an essay on the baptism of the chamberlain in 1977 , in which he gave information about the circumstances of the find and the condition of the painting, and made an art-historical classification. His assessments, especially regarding the authenticity of the painting, are accepted in research. In 1982 the members of the Rembrandt Research Project described The Baptism of the Chamberlain in the first volume of their Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings as a well-preserved original from 1626 that was reliably signed and dated. The assessment was confirmed in the sixth volume in 2015. Christian Tümpel lists the christening of the chamberlain as number 35 in his catalog raisonné of Rembrandt's paintings published in 1986.

Provenance

Until the 19th century, nothing is known about the history of the painting, which was never mentioned in art historical literature until it was discovered. The Archbishop's Museum in Utrecht, today the Catharijneconvent Museum, was asked in 1973 by an elderly lady from Nijmegen to examine a medieval image of St. Francis, which she might want to leave the museum. During his visit the following year, the art historian Henri LM Defoer found a painting in the living room of the household, next to the above-mentioned picture of Francis, which reminded him of Rembrandt's early work. When the suspicion of Rembrandt's authorship increased, the painting was given to the museum, initially on loan. According to the owner, a relative of the architect Willem Bijlard (1875–1940), the painting was bought by her grandfather around 1900.

The painting was acquired in February 1976 by the Archbishop's Museum Utrecht, now the Museum Catharijneconvent . The purchase was made possible by the financial support of the Vereniging Rembrandt and Prins Bernhardfonds foundations .

Exhibitions (chronological)

  • Aartsbisschoppelijk Museum Utrecht , Utrecht, Netherlands. Exhibition Rembrandt, "de doop van de kamerling" (German: Rembrandt, "Die Taufe des Kämmerers" ), March 31 to May 10, 1976.
  • Museum De Lakenhal , Leiden, Netherlands. Exhibition Geschildert tot Leyden anno 1626 (German: Painted in Leiden anno 1626 ), November 18, 1976 to January 9, 1977, catalog no. 25th
  • Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, Netherlands. Exhibition Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: “een jong en edel schildersduo” (German: Rembrandt & Lievens in Leiden: “A young and noble painter couple” ), December 4, 1991 to March 1, 1992, catalog no. 49.
  • Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister , Kassel, Germany. Exhibition The young Rembrandt. Mystery of its beginnings , November 3, 2001 to January 27, 2002, catalog no. .
  • Museum Het Rembrandthuis , Amsterdam, Netherlands. Exhibition Het mysterie van de jonge Rembrandt (German: The secret of young Rembrandt ), February 20 to May 26, 2002, catalog no. 3.
  • Kyoto National Museum , Japan. Exhibition Rembrandt Rembrandt , November 3, 2002 to January 8, 2003, catalog no. 1.
  • Städelsches Kunstinstitut , Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Exhibition Rembrandt Rembrandt , February 1 to May 11, 2003, catalog no. 1.
  • Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, Netherlands. Exhibition Rembrandt in zijn Leidse period (German: Rembrandt in his Leiden period ), December 1, 2005 to April 1, 2006.
  • Kloosterkerk , The Hague, Netherlands. On the occasion of the christening of Ariane Wilhelmina Máxima Ines van Oranje, Princess of the Netherlands and Princess of Oranje-Nassau , October 20, 2007.
  • Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands. Exhibition Met passie geschilderd: topstukken uit de Gouden Eeuw (German: Painted with passion. Top pieces of the Golden Age ), April 26 to September 14, 2008, catalog no. 45.
  • Graphic Collection Albertina , Vienna, Austria. Exhibition The Age of Rembrandt , March 4 to June 21, 2009, catalog no. 63.
  • Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands. Exhibition Verborgen Verhalen: oude meesters uit eigen collectie (German: Hidden stories. Old masters from our own collection ), June 2 to September 4, 2011.
  • Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands. Exhibition Gerrit Pieterzn, de Andere Sweelinck (German: Gerrit Pieterzn., Der Andere Sweelinck ), July 27 to October 7, 2012.
  • Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands. Exhibition Vormen van verdraagzaamheid: religieuze tolerantie in de Gouden Eeuw (German: Forms of Compatibility. Religious Tolerance in the Golden Age of the Netherlands ), September 6, 2013 to January 5, 2014.
  • Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, Netherlands. Exhibition Thuis in de Bijbel: oude meesters, grote verhalen (German: At home in the Bible. Old Masters, Great Stories ), February 8th to August 10th, 2014.
  • Szépművészeti Múzeum , Budapest, Hungary. Exhibition Rembrandt & the Dutch Golden Age , October 30, 2014 to February 15, 2015, catalog no. 81.

literature

Web links

Commons : The Baptism of the Chamberlain  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Ed.): A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. I. pp. 99-102.
  2. a b c Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Ed.): A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. I. p. 96.
  3. Peter Klein: Report on the dendrochronological examination of the panel of paintings "The Baptism of the Chamberlain" (Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Inv.-Nr. 380) from October 4, 1995, report on the website of the RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, accessed on October 21, 2019.
  4. a b c d e f g h i Henri LM Defoer: Rembrandt van Rijn, De Doop van de Kamerling. In: Oud Holland - Quarterly for Dutch Art History. 1977, Volume 91, No. 1/2, pp. 2-24, doi: 10.1163 / 187501777x00052 , digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.defoer.nl%2FKunstgeschiedenis%2Frembrandt002.pdf~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D .
  5. ^ A b Ernst van de Wetering: De jonge Rembrandt aan het werk. In: Oud Holland - Journal for Art of the Low Countries 1977, Volume 91, No. 1-2, pp. 27-60, doi: 10.1163 / 187501777X00070 .
  6. ^ Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (ed.): A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. I. pp. 97-98.
  7. Acts 8:27 in Greek , website Bibelwissenschaft.de, accessed October 21, 2019.
  8. ^ Ernst van de Wetering: Rembrandt, a biography. In: Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.): Rembrandt. Genius in search. DuMont Literature and Art, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-8321-7694-2 , pp. 21–49.
  9. Ben Broos: Rembrandt's first Amsterdam period. In: Oud Holland - Journal for Art of the Low Countries 2000, Volume 114, No. 1, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1163 / 187501700X00290 .
  10. ^ Martin Royalton-Kisch: Catalog of Drawings by Rembrandt and his School in the British Museum . British Museum website, drawing 73, accessed October 22, 2019.
  11. ^ Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (ed.): A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. I. pp. 102-103.
  12. Henri LM Defoer: Bijbelse voor het Nederlandse stellingen in interiors. In: TG Kootte (Ed.): De Bijbel in Huis. Bijbelse verhalen op huisraad in de zeventiende en achttiende eeuw. Waanders, Zwolle 1991, ISBN 90-6630-336-0 , pp. 43-58, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.defoer.nl%2FKunstgeschiedenis%2Fbijbelinhuis001.pdf~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D .
  13. lot 53. Follower of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn. The Baptism of the Eunuch , Christie's Amsterdam website, Old Master Pictures auction on May 6, 2008, accessed October 22, 2019.
  14. Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn - The baptism of the eunuch (Copy of a lost painting) , website of the Kremer Collection, accessed on October 22, 2019.
  15. ^ Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (ed.): A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. VI. Rembrandt's Paintings Revisited. A Complete Survey. Springer Science + Business Media, Dordrecht 2015, ISBN 978-94-017-9173-1 , p. 483.
  16. ^ Christian Tümpel : Rembrandt. Myth and Method. With contributions by Astrid Tümpel . Mercatorfonds, Antwerp 1986, ISBN 90-6153-165-9 .
  17. Rembrandt. The baptism of the Eunuch, 1626 gedateerd on the website of the RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis , accessed on October 21, 2019.
  18. a b Henri LM Defoer: Verzamelen voor het Catharijneconvent. In: Jaarverslag Museum Catharijneconvent. 2000, pp. 6-33, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.defoer.nl%2FKunstgeschiedenis%2Fverzamelen%2520catharijneconvent001.pdf~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~ double-sided 3D ~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D .