A CHARLES I SILK-EMBROIDERED PICTURE

CIRCA 1640

Details

A CHARLES I SILK-EMBROIDERED PICTURE
CIRCA 1640
Depicting the narrative of Elijah and the widow, with the a scene of Elijah encountering the widow of Zarephath and her mortally ill son as she gathers sticks, and showing the supine boy being revived under a tent, within an exotic landscape with beasts, birds, fish, insects and fruit-filled trees and flowers, within a metallic thread border, probably originally a cushion cover and on later canvas backing, within a later cushioned walnut and parcel-gilt frame
14¾ x 19½ in. (37.5 x 49.5 cm.) overall

Provenance

Purchased from Joe Kindig, Jr. & Son, York, Pennsylvania, 1988

Literature

Patricia E. Kane, "Living with Antiques: A Saint Louis couple collects," The Magazine Antiques (May 2002), pp. 112, 113, pls. I, II.

Lot Essay

The likely source for the central scene in this picture is an engraving of Elijah and the widow from the Theasurus Sacrarum Historiarum Veteris Testamenti published by Gerard de Jode in Antwerp in 1585. The stances of each of the figures, the seated Elijah gesturing to the widow of Zarephath, who holds her basket of sticks next to her son who supports a stick on his left shoulder is almost an exact quotation of the print.

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