Lot Essay
The composition derives from the picture by the artist's father, Frans Francken II, signed and dated 1621, at Tyntesfield, Somerset (National Trust).
The subject was one that Frans II turned to on several occasions during his career, affording as it did an opportunity for inventive compositions, numerous figures and exotic locations; in addition to the Wraxall picture, overlooked since Gustav Waagen recorded it at Blenheim Palace in 1854 (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London, 1854, III, p. 123), eight treatments of the subject by Frans II are known (see U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere, Freren, 1989, pp. 236-9, nos. 38-45). Of those, only that in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe shares the same composition as this and the Wraxall picture; that the present work derives from the latter may be deduced from the rock in the lower right foreground, common to both but absent from the Karlsruhe picture.
Within the composition are several motifs taken from Italian art: for example, the two groups of mothers and children in the foreground, of which that on the left derives from Raphael's Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth (La Perla) in the Prado, Madrid, and that on the right from Veronese's Saint Mark and Saint Marcelliano being led off to Martyrdom in the church of San Sebastiano, Venice.
The iconography is unusual in the prominence given to the sarcophagus in the centre foreground, containing the bones of Joseph. This is a reference ot Exodus, XIII:19: 'And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall cary up my bones away hence with you'; the book of Joshua, XXIV:32, relates that 'the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Schechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob brought of the sons of Hamor the father of Schechem for an hundred pieces of money: and they became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.'
The subject was one that Frans II turned to on several occasions during his career, affording as it did an opportunity for inventive compositions, numerous figures and exotic locations; in addition to the Wraxall picture, overlooked since Gustav Waagen recorded it at Blenheim Palace in 1854 (Treasures of Art in Great Britain, London, 1854, III, p. 123), eight treatments of the subject by Frans II are known (see U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere, Freren, 1989, pp. 236-9, nos. 38-45). Of those, only that in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe shares the same composition as this and the Wraxall picture; that the present work derives from the latter may be deduced from the rock in the lower right foreground, common to both but absent from the Karlsruhe picture.
Within the composition are several motifs taken from Italian art: for example, the two groups of mothers and children in the foreground, of which that on the left derives from Raphael's Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth (La Perla) in the Prado, Madrid, and that on the right from Veronese's Saint Mark and Saint Marcelliano being led off to Martyrdom in the church of San Sebastiano, Venice.
The iconography is unusual in the prominence given to the sarcophagus in the centre foreground, containing the bones of Joseph. This is a reference ot Exodus, XIII:19: 'And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall cary up my bones away hence with you'; the book of Joshua, XXIV:32, relates that 'the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Schechem, in the parcel of ground which Jacob brought of the sons of Hamor the father of Schechem for an hundred pieces of money: and they became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.'