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Lot Essay
Apparently unpublished, this is a characteristic work by Salomon Koninck and is thus a significant addition to his by no means extensive extant oeuvre. It includes the motif of an elderly Jew, whose plentiful white hair and beard was a favourite subject of the artist.
Koninck's earlier, linear handling was moulded on that of Rembrandt in circa 1630; indeed the composition, which explores Christian duty towards a temporal ruler (see, for example, Matthew, 22: 15-22), may have been inspired by Rembrandt's etching of the same subject in a horizontal format of circa 1635 (C. White and K. Boon, Rembrandt's Etchings: an Illustrated Critical Catalogue, 1969, no. B68). The dramatic use of the silhouette and the facial types may also be regarded as Rembrandtesque; the faces of Christ and the Pharisee compare with those in Rembrandt's etchings of the Supper at Emmaus of circa 1635 and the Oriental Head of 1634 (ibid., Boon, nos. B88 and B287 respectively. Probably not dervied from Rembrandt, though, is the temple's Renaissance-style archway, that may rather be due to the influence of Thomas de Keyser, also then active in Amsterdam.
Koninck's earlier, linear handling was moulded on that of Rembrandt in circa 1630; indeed the composition, which explores Christian duty towards a temporal ruler (see, for example, Matthew, 22: 15-22), may have been inspired by Rembrandt's etching of the same subject in a horizontal format of circa 1635 (C. White and K. Boon, Rembrandt's Etchings: an Illustrated Critical Catalogue, 1969, no. B68). The dramatic use of the silhouette and the facial types may also be regarded as Rembrandtesque; the faces of Christ and the Pharisee compare with those in Rembrandt's etchings of the Supper at Emmaus of circa 1635 and the Oriental Head of 1634 (ibid., Boon, nos. B88 and B287 respectively. Probably not dervied from Rembrandt, though, is the temple's Renaissance-style archway, that may rather be due to the influence of Thomas de Keyser, also then active in Amsterdam.