Joseph selling Corn

Details

Circle of Bartholomeus Breenbergh (Deventer 1598-1657 Amsterdam)
Joseph selling Corn
oil on panel
18 5/8 x 27¼ in. (47.3 x 69.2 cm.)

Provenance

Abbé du Jardin, Bruges (his seal bearing the initials DJ on the reverse of the panel), illustrated in the catalogue of whose collection (1846, fig. 27) with an anonymous lithograph of the same size in reverse, and erroneously given the provenance of the Dresden picture).
Private collection, France.

Literature

M. Roethlisberger, Bartholomeus Breenbergh, The Paintings, Berlin, 1981, p. 81 (as copy no. 1 of cat. no. 204), illustrated.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. This lot is subject to storage and collection charges. **For Furniture and Decorative Objects, storage charges commence 7 days from sale. Please contact department for further details.**

Sale room notice

Please note that the estimate for this lot should read: £6,000-8,000 and NOT as stated in the catalogue.

Lot Essay

After the picture formerly in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden and destroyed in 1945. The present picture is published by Roethlisberger who notes that it is 'An excellent and remarkably faithful repetition from the period, possibly done in the studio' (loc. cit.).

The subject illustrates Genesis XLII: 6, Joseph, as governor of Egypt, oversees the sale of corn during the dearth that he had foreseen in his dream. A prefiguration of Christ's feeding of the five thousand, the scene was popular in 17th century Holland after its introduction into standard iconography by Pieter Lastman in the picture now in the National Gallery, Dublin (cat. no. 890).

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