Jacob's Blessing (Rembrandt)

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The Jacob's Blessing (Rembrandt van Rijn)
The Jacob's blessing
Rembrandt van Rijn , 1656
Oil on canvas
178 × 211 cm
Wilhelmshöhe Castle

The Jacob's Blessing , also Jacob blesses his grandchildren or The Blessing of Jacob , is a history painting from 1656 by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn, painted in oil on canvas . The painting is signed “Rembran .. f. 1656 ”, Rembrandt's German letters are illegible.

The painting is considered an important late work by Rembrandt. The Jacob's Blessing is the highlight of the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Kassel 's Wilhelmshöhe Palace . The Kassel-born writer Manfred Hausmann praised the picture as a “miracle of silent humanity and unfathomable transcendence ”.

Provenance

The Amsterdam patrician Wilhelm Schrijver acted as the client . The painting shows him with his wife Wendela de Graeff and their two children as biblical persons. The Jacob's blessing was in the collection of Andries de Graeff and was sold in 1753 from the estate of his descendant Gerrit de Graeff to a Hamburg art dealer. Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hessen-Kassel bought it in the same year for his picture gallery in Bellevue Palace . After annexation of the electorate of Hesse by Prussia came the painting becomes the property of the State of Prussia, after the Second World War, the property of the newly founded state of Hesse . Today it is considered the most valuable art object in Hesse.

Image description

Jacob sits propped up in bed in front of his son Joseph. He puts his right hand on the head of the blond boy Ephraim . Joseph is apparently trying to gently support his father Jacob's hand from below in order to direct it onto the head of the nearer, dark-haired Manasseh : The firstborn Manasseh is to receive the stronger blessing of the right hand. Joseph's wife Asenat stands beside Joseph, lost in thought.

The motif refers to the relationship between Judaism and paganism . Manasseh, who symbolizes Judaism, is reset by Jacob. The second-born Ephraim, who stands for paganism, is preferred by Jacob because paganism accepted the revelation. Judaism, on the other hand, was granted the revelation first, but rejected it.

This is evidenced by the indicated crossing of Jacob's hands by Rembrandt. For Rembrandt himself, blessing is the main theme. This namely describes the passing on of a supernatural chosenness to future generations.

Biblical background

See also Jacob's Blessing .

Rembrandt painted the Bible verses Gen 48: 17-20  LUT : Jacob adopted his grandchildren Ephraim and Manasseh . These became the ancestors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel . The dying Jewish patriarch Jacob had his son Joseph and his grandchildren Ephraim and Manasseh called to bless the grandchildren. Joseph desires the favored blessing of Manasseh, the firstborn; Jacob, however, first blesses Ephraim, his younger brother. Jacob justifies this with the following words: “This one shall also become a people and will be great; but his younger brother will be bigger than him. "

restoration

After Hans-Joachim Bohlmann's acid attack in 1977, the Jacob's blessing was restored and examined. The x-rays showed that Asenat was missing entirely and was added later. In their place Joseph was depicted at the foot of the bed. In the course of Rembrandt's work, the head of Joseph moved closer and closer to the head of Jacob in two stages. The relationship between Jacob and Joseph grew closer and closer in the different versions. The restoration gave the picture back its original color.

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Reiner Haussherr : Rembrandt's Jacob's Blessing: Considerations for the interpretation of the painting in the Kassel gallery . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3-663-01841-4 , p. 99 .
  • Thomas Krämer, Christiane Ehrenforth, Monika Kammer: On the restoration history of the works of Rembrandt, his students and workshop in the Kassel Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister . In: Journal for Art Technology and Conservation 33 (2019/1), pp. 137–177.
  • museum: Old Masters Picture Gallery, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe Kassel . Georg Westermann Verlag Braunschweig, 1981, pp. 13, 73 and 74
  • Museumsverein Kassel e. V. (Ed.): Old Masters Picture Gallery, Wilhelmshöhe Palace . Kassel, 1979, p. 6.
  • Jürgen Weishaupt: Kassel treasures . Verlag Thiele & Schwarz Kassel, 1981, p. 9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.hna.de/lokales/kassel/kasseler-jakobssegen-hessens-wertvollste-kunst-4281881.html accessed on November 7, 2014
  2. ↑ Krämer, Ehrenforth, Kammer: Zur Restaurierungsgeschichte , pp. 154f.
  3. ↑ Krämer, Ehrenforth, Chamber: To the history of restoration .