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Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions” (2020). In The Leiden Collection
Catalogue, 4th ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Elizabeth Nogrady with Caroline Van Cauwenberge. New York,
2023–.

https://theleidencollection.com/essays/pieter-lastmans-david-and-uriah-storytelling-and-the-passions/(accessed

November 10, 2024).
A PDF of every version of this essay is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by apermanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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History paintings tell stories. They may depict episodes of confrontation,
recognition, or reconciliation, or moments inciting fear, betrayal, or desire.
Often driven by an individual’s weakness, a deep passion, or an innerconflict, historical narratives have the potential to reveal either vice or virtue,
to display a flawed moral character or an expression of unwavering faith.
Capturing the complex relationship between the “movements of the soul” andtheir outward manifestation in gesture and expression constituted one of thegreatest challenges for seventeenth-century Dutch artists.[1] One approach
was to render history paintings, which were primarily drawn from the Bible,

Fig 1. Pieter Lastman, David
Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab ,1619, oil on panel, 42.8 x 63.3
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, inv. no. PL-100.

ancient history, and mythology, with great naturalism, so that beholders could
understand—and even personally experience—the passions, or emotions,
portrayed before them.[2] At the turn of the seventeenth century, Karel van
Mander (1584–1606) called the passions “the kernel and soul of art,”
while Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–78) considered them “the most noble[part of art].”[3] To achieve the lofty goal of depicting the passions meant that
Dutch artists should not only “instruct and delight” the beholder but, above all,“stir our minds.”[4]The Amsterdam painter Pieter Lastman (1583–1633) was one of the mostFig 2. Hans Holbein, David and
Uriah, 1538, woodcut, 60 x 85
mm, Rijksprentenkabinet,
Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-POB-4511S(R).

consequential Dutch history painters in the early seventeenth century.[5] The
extraordinary aptitude for storytelling on view in his David Gives Uriah a Letter
for Joab (fig 1), a pivotal scene from the life of the Old Testament King David,
situates this work at the nexus of The Leiden Collection, which features
paintings of the human figure, not only portraits and tronies, but also historical,
mythological, and genre subjects.[6] Lastman brought an erudition, innovation,and expressiveness to his depiction of historical themes that impacted ageneration of artists in the Netherlands, most importantly in the work of his
pupils Jan Lievens (1607–74) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), but also inpaintings by Rembrandt’s students, including Ferdinand Bol (1616–80),

Fig 3. David and Uriah, 1556,
woodcut, 59 x 85 mm, from Den
Bibel, published by Hans deLaet, Antwerp, VU Amsterdam
University Library, inv. no.
XC.05058.

Govaert Flinck (1615–60), and Carel Fabritius (1622–54). Lastman’s artistic
heritage was likewise significant for artists working outside of Rembrandt’s
immediate circle, such as Frans van Mieris (1635–81) and Jan Steen(1626–79), who painted history scenes into the later seventeenth century.[7]This essay explores key aspects of Lastman’s approach to history painting
through the lens of David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab. It addresses some ofLastman’s central concerns as a history painter in seventeenth-century
Amsterdam as well as the pictorial implications his narrative and stylistic
choices had for Dutch history painting.[8] More specifically, it examines theartist’s interest in portraying a moment of intense inner conflict andFig 4. Pieter Lastman, KingDavid Handing the Letter to
Uriah, 1611, oil on panel, 51.1 ×
61.3 cm, Detroit Institute of Arts,
inv. no. 60.63, Detroit Instituteof Arts, USA Founders Society© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 3 of 24

demonstrates how his knowledge of antique visual and textual sources, alongwith

contemporary

culturalandintellectual

traditions,

impactedpurchase and Dexter M. Ferry
Jr. Fund / Bridgeman Images.

hisstorytelling.[9] Exploring these issues provides insight into Lastman’s ingenuity
as a painter and offers a broader perspective on his place within The Leiden
Collection.

Lastman and Religious History Painting in Early
Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
History painting held an important role in the artistic and cultural life of the
Dutch Republic, and by the second quarter of the seventeenth century,

Fig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Judas Returning the Thirty
Pieces of Silver, 1629, oil on
panel, 79 x 102.3 cm, Private
Collection.

Amsterdam had risen to become the genre’s center.[10] While stories drawn
from ancient histories and mythologies, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
Pliny’s Natural History, and Virgil’s Aeneid were popular among Dutch
collectors, religious subjects from the Old and New Testaments flourishedalongside them.[11] Despite the contentious role of religious imagery in theCalvinist Reformed Church, the official religion of the Republic, narrative
biblical scenes were tolerated and even encouraged for the ways in which
they could evoke moral themes and provide a source of emulation forpeople’s daily lives.[12] Depictions of Old Testament patriarchs, kings, andprophets, apocryphal stories from the Book of Tobit and Book of Esther, andepisodes from the life of Christ, the Apostles, and the Evangelists, could be

Fig 6. Ferdinand Bol, Angel
Appearing to Elijah, ca. 1642,
oil on canvas, 162.6 x 177.8
cm, The Leiden Collection, New
York, FB-104.

seen in historical terms and provided models for human behavior, whether
displayed in private homes or public, civic spaces.[13]In a city like Amsterdam, which represented the multiconfessional nature of
Dutch society, members of the different sects of the Reformed Church(predominantly Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants) lived alongside
Roman Catholic and Jewish populations.[14] Artists, regardless of their own
faith, negotiated these various belief systems.[15] Religious history paintings
were therefore not strictly made along confessional lines, but rather could beviewed from within an individual’s own set of beliefs.[16] As a Catholic artist,
Lastman would have produced works for Protestant as well as Catholic
households, and neither his religious convictions nor those of his collectors

Fig 7. Carel Fabritius, Hagar
and the Angel, ca. 1645, oil oncanvas, 157.5 x 136 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York,
inv. no. CF-100.

and patrons would necessarily have determined his choice of subject
matter.[17] Yet, as Tico Seifert and others have observed, Lastman may haveadapted the manner in which he approached certain biblical themes to reflect
the faith of his patrons, many of whom came from the high end of the art
market.[18]These broader circumstances laid the groundwork for a new approach to© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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history painting in the early decades of the seventeenth century. For Lastman,
this meant turning away from the exaggerated expressions of Mannerism that
had dominated history painting at the end of the sixteenth century—large-scale
works, often with nude figures in active poses—and toward the depiction of
biblical and profane themes with small, multifigure compositions, often set into
landscapes, with “historical” details. Orientalizing motifs, for instance, wereintended to situate biblical scenes in a context that resembled the holy land.[19]A group of contemporaries in Amsterdam, including Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert(1591–1655), Jan (1581/82–1630) and Jacob Pynas (1592/3–after 1650),
François Venant (1590–1636), and Jan Tengnagel (1584–1635), followed
Lastman’s narrative approach and rendered their scenes with a similar clarityof form and historical consciousness.[20] Together, they helped to establish
Amsterdam’s new artistic tradition.[21]Lastmanemergedcontemporaries.

[22]

as

the

most

innovative

anderuditeofhis

His work was informed by a vast knowledge of literary andhistorical texts, as well as antique, Italian, and Netherlandish pictorial sources.
Significant for his artistic development was the journey to Italy that heundertook between ca. 1602/3 and 1607, which likely included time in Venice,
Padua, Florence, and Rome. He studied the work of Titian, Veronese, andTintoretto in Venice and saw the paintings and sculptures of Raphael andMichelangelo in Rome alongside antique sculpture and architecture. Elementsof these artists’ works served as inspiration for Lastman and would later
become part of his pictorial repertoire.[23] Among the contemporary artists inRome, some of whom Lastman may have encountered directly, were
Caravaggio (1578–1610), the Flemish artist Paul Bril (ca. 1553/54–1626), and
the German artist Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), whose small-scale figures,
depictions of landscapes, and night scenes greatly impacted Lastman’s
handling of narrative and composition.[24]Back in his native Amsterdam in 1607, Lastman increasingly looked tosixteenth-century prints and biblical illustrations, incorporating their subjects
and motifs into his paintings. Biblical prints by Maarten van Heemskerck(1498–1574) and Maarten de Vos (1532–1603), for example, which brought
an historical vantage point deeply informed by antiquity to their depictions of
Old Testament scenes, supplied Lastman with subject matter that had neverbefore—or rarely—been depicted in paintings. With this visual inspiration hecombined his vast knowledge of literary sources.[25] He was familiar withancient Greek and Roman texts, stretching from Euripides, Herodotus, andOvid to Livy, and with contemporary sources like Karel van Mander’s Het
Schilderboeck, Guillaume du Choul’s Discours de la religion des anciens© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 5 of 24

romains, as well as sixteenth- and seventeenth-century emblem books.[26] By
combining a range of pictorial models and multiple textual sources in the
depiction of a single subject, Lastman imbued his scenes with their narrativeand historical authenticity.[27] Such erudite paintings would have appealed to
Amsterdam liefhebbers (art lovers), who—as the diplomat and poet Balthasar
Gerbier (1592–1663) noted in his monumental poem of 1620, Eeer ende
Claght-Dicht

Ter

Eeren

van

den

Lofweerdighen

Constrijcken

ende

Gheleerden Henricus Goltizus—would have gazed upon Lastman’s paintings
with pleasure.[28]Lastman’s iconographic choices, careful selection of authentic details,
handling of paint, and modeling of forms were not the only aspects of his workthat distinguished him in the early seventeenth century. He also understoodthe significance of selecting a precise narrative moment. Lastman favoredscenes from the Old Testament in which the “hero” is shown in a moment ofgreat conflict, particularly one that represented a change in the individual’sfate. Such episodes—meetings, encounters, and appearances of thedivine—affected the expressive potential of the story and placed theprotagonist at a crossroads.[29] Lastman could achieve this expressiveness in
his work by representing dramatic physical action, but also by capturing thecharacter’s inner struggles, passions, and strengths, thereby portraying theessence of an emotional moment.

Lastman’s David and Uriah: Moving the Passions
In Lastman’s David and Uriah, which depicts a story from the Book of Samuel(2 Samuel 11), a youthful King David sits on a dais between two large
columns placed slightly off center. He grasps a letter that he will give to Uriah,a document that is tantamount to a death warrant as it orders the soldier to besent to the front line of battle.[30] Though David’s bearing is powerful, his
furrowed brow and twisted body language bespeak the moral ambiguity of his
position.[31] Uriah, in contrast, kneels beside the throne forthrightly, his righthand outstretched to receive the letter, the other placed resolutely on histhigh. The young scribe looks on incredulously; his hand hovers in space as if
frozen in time. Bystanders in the background—even the dog beside thethrone—gaze upon the exchange between David and Uriah with anticipation,heightening the composition’s emotional and psychological tension.
The well-informed viewer would have recognized what preceded and followed
Lastman’s scene: David had committed adultery with Uriah’s wife,
Bathsheba, while her husband was away serving in the king’s army, and she© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 6 of 24

had become pregnant with his child. In an attempt to conceal his act, David
recalled Uriah on a pretense and tried to send him to Bathsheba, but Uriah’sloyalty to his fellow soldiers prevented him from lying with his wife. David’s
letter to Joab, the commander of his forces, essentially condemns Uriah to be
killed at the front, allowing David to marry Bathsheba.
Although Lastman’s depiction of this biblical narrative had few pictorial
precedents, sixteenth-century prints provided him with important models forthe representation of the exchange between the two men. In a woodcut by
Hans Holbein (1497/98–1543), which first appeared in the 1538 edition of the
Biblia Utriusque Testamenti iuxta Vulgatam Translationem (fig 2), David’s
outstretched hand and pointed finger pass on the command, creating aphysically charged encounter with Uriah.[32] Hans de Laet’s (1524?–66)
slightly later woodcut, published in Antwerp in 1556 (fig 3), depicts Uriahkneeling obediently by David’s side as he accepts the letter.[33] In each ofthese examples, the balance of power is absolute. In his painting, however,Lastman presents an earlier moment in the story: David has not yet handed
over the letter that will seal Uriah’s fate. The compositional structure andexpressive poses of the figures thus present a more visually and emotionallycomplex relationship between the men and underscore David’s compromised
position.[34]The narrative moment reflected in Lastman’s painting belongs to the classicalGreek tradition of peripeteia (turnaround) that Aristotle described in his
Poetics. Peripeteia signifies the plot’s reversal, or transformation, resulting ina significant change or resolution in the lives of the story’s characters.[35]Germane to its development is the act of recognition, agnitio, or what Aristotle
called “a change from ignorance to knowledge,” and from which the mostintense and uncertain moment of the narrative emerges.[36] Lastman’s
challenge in David and Uriah was to portray David’s betrayal in progress—atthe cusp of the plot’s transformation—for the viewer to witness as it unfolds.
David and Uriah represents a dramatic reversal of events not through physicalmeans, but by stirring the conflicting passions of loyalty, betrayal, and desirethat shaped this moment of peripeteia.
In the 1640s, the playwright and author Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679),
who was keenly interested in the visual arts and in Lastman’s work, described
the role of peripeteia for contemporary theater, calling it staetveranderinge(“change of state”).[37] Vondel explained how “both principal rules ofembellishment, called by the ancients peripeteia and agnitio / or pivotal
moment and recognition, function together.”[38] Their representation—in the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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visual arts or theater, in this case—was intended to produce the greatest
narrative tension. While Vondel’s concepts only became crucial for theater inthe second half of the seventeenth century, as Amy Golahny and others havenoted, they had already gained currency in intellectual and artistic circles in
the 1610s, when Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655) first introduced Aristotle’s text
into the Netherlands.[39] A poet, scholar, and Leiden University professor,
Heinsius published his influential edition of Aristotle’s Poetics in 1610,
followed by his commentary De Tragoediae constitutione, in 1611.[40] Heinsius
discussed peripeteia and agnitio and their role in stirring the passions,following Aristotle’s explanation of the modes of recognition, and similarly
emphasized the principle one as being when “the recognition gradually arises
from the very subject matter.”[41] Lastman was familiar with Heinsius, andlikely also with Aristotle.[42] Whether or not he sought to demonstrate theseauthors’ precepts of dramatic theory directly, his command of storytelling andpoignant evocation of a crucial turning point in David and Uriah indicates that
he was receptive to such ideas and applied them to his own history paintings.
Lastman’s powerful portrayal of human passions in David and Uriah was theresult of a masterful combination of elements: a clear, structured composition
with a bright palette, even lighting, and carefully selected details that reflected
his knowledge of various literary and pictorial sources. As Christian Tümpel
first demonstrated, Lastman consulted both the biblical account and Flavius
Josephus’s Antiquity of the Jews (book 7, chapter 7), a record of the Jewish
people written in the first century AD.[43] Lastman included details only foundin Josephus’s text, namely the red seal on the letter, signifying lawfulauthority. He also added other pictorial elements, such as the scribe, which
are not mentioned by Josephus or in the Bible.[44] At the same time, Lastman
incorporated antique motifs and architectural elements in order to suggest thescene’s historical authenticity, including a dome resembling St. Peter’s,
which was intended to evoke Jerusalem, and Uriah’s helmet, which he basedon an Italian helmet all’antica that he had seen in Amsterdam.[45]Lastman had treated the subject of David and Uriah eight years earlier (fig 4).
[46]

While the episode represented in the two works is nearly identical—the

handing over of the letter—Lastman initially depicted a later moment from thenarrative, when Uriah has already accepted the letter and thus his fate. In thefirst painting, Lastman arranged the figures in a more tightly organized verticalcomposition than the expansive, stage-like space he would utilize in the
Leiden Collection work. The former scene is more closely related to De Laet’s
sixteenth-century woodcut (fig 3) in the expression of power dynamics
between the figures. When Lastman revisited the subject in 1619, he© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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introduced more storytelling to the scene and situated his figures parallel tothe picture plane, encouraging the beholder to “read” the narrative as if
played out before him. By expanding the space between the figures andallowing the exchange of glances to reveal itself slowly, Lastman instilled thecomposition with greater expressive and emotional anticipation. With thisevolved approach almost a decade later, Lastman composed his story so thatit could resonate more directly with the viewer, thereby fulfilling the aim ofstirring the mind, and the heart.[47]From Lastman to Rembrandt and His Pupils
In 1629, Constantijn Huygens, the secretary to the Stadholder Frederick
Hendrik (1584–1647), art lover and poet, visited the studios of Lievens andRembrandt in Leiden and observed how “Rembrandt was superior . . . in his
sure touch and liveliness of emotions,” qualities that were essential for
painting expressive history scenes.[48] Both men had studied with Lastman,with Lievens spending several years with the master from 1617 to 1621, andRembrandt six months in 1625. Lievens and Rembrandt would have learned
the key principles of history painting from Lastman, from the arrangement of
figure groupings within a composition to portraying emotion through actionand expression. Lastman would have showed both pupils the essence ofstorytelling, demonstrating how gestures and glances, body language andcomposition, could contribute to depicting deeply moving episodes of thehuman experience.[49] Nevertheless, Rembrandt, more than Lievens, excelledin capturing the “movements of the soul.”[50]In his unpublished autobiography written between 1629 and 1631, Huygens
summarized Rembrandt’s depiction of the passions in Judas Returning theThirty Pieces of Silver (fig 5):
Rembrandt devotes all his loving concentration to a small painting. . . .
The gesture of the single man, the despairing Judas . . . wailing, begging
for forgiveness, and at the same time completely without hope, preserving
no trace of hope in his expression, the horrible face, the torn-out hair, theripped garment, the twisted arms, his hands clenched to the point of being
bloody, lying prone and on his knees because of some dark impulse, thewhole body wracked by some horrific misery. . . . I maintain that it did notoccur to Protogenes, Apelles, or Parrhasios, nor could it occur to them,were they to return to earth, that a youth, a Dutchman, a beardless miller,
could put so much into one human figure and depict it all.[51]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Huygens’s ekphrastic account of Rembrandt’s painting revealed his
admiration for the young artist’s ability to represent a complex range ofemotions in a single figure, qualities that reflect a critical aspect of Lastman’s
teachings. Rembrandt had successfully transformed Judas’s inner despair
into its outward expression, evoking for the viewer by naturalistic and forcefulmeans the truthfulness of his emotions.
Lastman’s sophisticated approach to history painting, defined by its attention
to narrative and historical detail and a wide range of pictorial and textual
sources, continued to exert an impact on Rembrandt and his circle into themid-1630s and beyond.[52] Two paintings in The Leiden Collection by
Rembrandt’s pupils Ferdinand Bol (1616–80) and Carel Fabritius (1622–54),
display some of the ways in which Lastman’s narrative choices andunderstanding of dramatic concepts like peripeteia resonated in the work oflater Amsterdam artists.[53] Both Bol’s Angel Appearing to Elijah (fig 6) andFabritius’s Hagar and the Angel (fig 7) depict biblical subjects of divineintervention at their most pivotal moments.[54] In Bol’s painting (1 Kings
16:29–34 and chapters 17–19), Elijah will soon be awoken and saved by theangel who exhorts him to “arise and eat.”[55] In Fabritius’s moving scene(Genesis 21:15–19), the angel’s appearance to Hagar, who grasps her hands
in prayer and has begun to weep, will result in Hagar and her son Ishmael’s
salvation.[56] Each painting portrays the narrative moment just prior to when
the characters’ lives will change. Bol’s and Fabritius’s large-scale works,
which were rendered with earth-toned palettes and contrasts of light and dark,
differ from Lastman’s paintings in form, style, and in their precise attention tohistorical specificity. Yet the manner in which these artists sought to capture
the inner struggles of the main protagonists at a pivotal and as yet unresolved
point in the narrative—a strategy dependent upon the viewer’s knowledge ofthe story and its consequences—is consistent with Lastman’s treatment ofhistorical subjects and the evocation of their human element.
Pieter Lastman was a seminal figure in establishing the character of Dutch
history painting. His rich knowledge of various visual and textual sources andmotifs, erudition, and familiarity with dramatic theater shaped his sophisticatedapproach to the representation of historical themes. At the core of thisachievement was the depiction of the passions and his ability to kindle for thebeholder the inner motions of the mind and soul, often stirred by peripeteia.
Lastman impacted painters well into the seventeenth century, his work
offering artists a model for rendering this noble genre of painting. His
powerful, nuanced representation of the human experience in David and
Uriah makes this work enduringly compelling and aptly reflects Vondel’s© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 10 of 24

characterization of the artist as the “Apelles of our Age.”[57]- Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 2020

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Endnotes

1. Samuel van Hoogstraten described Rembrandt’s mastery in representing “the movements ofthe soul” in his Inleyding tot de hooge schoole de schilderkonst: Anders der zichtbaere werelt(Rotterdam, 1678), 75. Dutch art theorists such as Karel van Mander, Franciscus Junius, andVan Hoogstraten discussed the importance of representing the passions in their respective
treatises. For further discussion, see Thijs Weststeijn, “Between Mind and Body: Painting theInner Movements According to Samuel van Hoogstraten and Franciscus Junius,” in The
Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman
Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 263–83.
2. While the emergence of a hierarchy of subject matter only developed in the later seventeenth
century, history paintings were long considered the highest form of art because they dealt
with subjects of great moral consequence. For a broad discussion of history painting, see
Albert Blankert, “Introduction,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of
Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 14–33.
Artists sought to represent the passions across all genres. For an introduction to the role ofthe passions in the art of the early modern Netherlands, as well as additional literature, see
Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, “Introduction: The Motions of the Mind,”in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey andHerman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 6–16.
Dickey and Roodenburg note that no “unified concept of ‘emotion’” existed in this period,and “the (sensual) ‘passions’ were distinguished from the (intellectual) ‘affections’ withvarious shades of meaning.” They use the terms “passions” and “emotions” interchangeably
in their edited volume, a usage that this essay follows.
3. “Kern en ziel van de kunst,” as described by Karel van Mander in “Wtbeeldinghe derAffecten/passien/begeerlijckheden/en lijdens der Menschen (The representation of theaffects, passions, desires, and sorrows of men),” in Karel van Mander, Den grondt der edelvrij Schilder-konst, ed. Hessel Miedema (Utrecht, 1973), 6: 55, f. 27r. Van Mander’s Grondt
was primarily directed at history painters (or figure painters). Van Hoogstraten referred to thepassions as “alleredelste deel der kunst.” Samuel van Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge
schoole de schilderkonst: Anders der zichtbaere werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 109; Thijs
Weststeijn, “Between Mind and Body: Painting the Inner Movements According to Samuelvan Hoogstraten and Franciscus Junius,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern
Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for
History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 264.
4. In his treatise The Painting of the Ancients, which was published in Latin in 1637 and in Dutch© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 12 of 24

in 1641, Franciscus Junius summarized the artists’ duty as akin to that of orators or ancientrhetoricians. Citing Cicero’s De optimo genere oratorum, Junius wrote, “It is [the artists’] duty
. . . that they should teach; it is for their owne credit that they should delight; it is altogether
requisite that they should move and stirre our minde.” See Franciscus Junius, The Literatureof Classical Art. 1. The Painting of the Ancients: De picture veterum, According to the English
Translation (1638) (Berkeley, 1991), 297, 330; and Thijs Weststeijn, “Between Mind andBody: Painting the Inner Movements According to Samuel van Hoogstraten and Franciscus
Junius,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S.
Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010):
280n20.
5. Cities across the Republic boasted respective traditions of history painting in the earlyseventeenth century, including the work of Hendrick Goltzius and Cornelis van Haarlem inHaarlem, for example, and of Abraham Bloemaert, Joachim Wttewael, Hendrick ter
Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, and Dirck van Baburen in Utrecht. For history painting in
Amsterdam, see note 10, and for Lastman, see Christian T. Seifert, “Pieter Lastman,
Constrijcken history Schilder tot Amsterdam—kunstreicher Historienmaler zu Amsterdam,” inPieter Lastman: in Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt (Exh. cat. Hamburg, Hamburger
Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006), 14–24.
6. At present, The Leiden Collection does not include any landscapes, and includes only one
still life.
7. Little attention has been paid in the scholarship to the development of the treatment ofhistories by genre painters, many of whom turned to historical subjects in the second half ofthe seventeenth century. For further discussion, see Susan Kuretsky, “Independents andEccentrics,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert
Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute ofArts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 253–89; for Frans van Mieris’s
historical themes, see Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The
Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (New Haven, 2005), nos. 44
and 47; and Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder (Doornspijk, 1981), 1:
89–91; 2: nos. 85, 97, 121. For Jan Steen as a history painter, see Lyckle de Vries, “JanSteenzwischen

Genre-und

Historienmalerei,”

Niederdeutsch

Beitragenzur

Kunstgeschichte 22 (1982): 113–28; Ariane van Suchtelen, ed., Jan Steen’s Histories (Exh.
cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2018). The investigation of the history paintings of the
Leiden fijnschilders as well as those of Jan Steen will be explored in future essays in The
Leiden Collection Catalogue.
8. Dutch history painting in the seventeenth century has long been relegated to a minor role inthe scholarship. In the decades following Gods, Saints and Heroes, 1980, the first major
exhibition to treat the subject, thematic exhibitions on aspects of history painting and© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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publications on individual artists have appeared sporadically. See, for example: ChristianTümpel, ed., Het Oude testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum) (Zwolle, 1991); Albert
Blankert et al., Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting (Exh. cat. Rotterdam,
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut)(Rotterdam, 1999); Peter Schoon et al., Greek Gods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens andRembrandt (Exh. cat. Athens, National Gallery / Alexandros Soutzos Museum andNetherlands Institute; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) (Dordrecht, 2000); Eric Jan Sluijter,
Rembrandt and the Female Nude (Amsterdam, 2006); Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals:
History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650 (Amsterdam, 2017); Ariane van Suchtelen, ed.,Jan Steen’s Histories (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2018). The subject ofhistory painting is conspicuously absent in the more recent assessment of the field in Wayne
Franits, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Dutch Art of the SeventeenthCentury (Burlington, Vt., 2016).
9. This essay builds upon the wide-ranging scholarship on Lastman’s painting, particularly themore recent contributions made by Amy Golahny, but takes a new perspective by focusing on
Lastman’s strategies for depicting a dramatic narrative and evoking the passions as a central
means of storytelling. See Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The
Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman
Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 179–201; and Amy
Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and 1619,”
in The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry Silver, ed.
Debra Taylor Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 500–514. For
full references to David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab, see the entry in this catalogue.
10. For a recent discussion regarding Amsterdam’s role as a new center for history painting
spurred by a confluence of wealth, trade, and a growing merchant class, see Eric Jan Sluijter,
Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650 (Amsterdam, 2017). Sluijter
notes that “history painting had developed into an Amsterdam specialty. Not only in absolute
numbers but also the percentage of artists making history paintings in Amsterdam, from themid-1620s until the late 1660s, was considerably higher than in the next two largest centersof painting production, Haarlem and The Hague” (14). For Amsterdam as a center for Old
Testament subject matter, see Christian Tümpel, “Die Alttestamentliche Historienmalerei im
Zeitalter Rembrandts,” in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter
der niederländischen Kunst, ed. Christian Tümpel (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods HistorischMuseum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen Landesmuseum) (Munich,1994), 16–19.
11. As John Michael Montias observed in his extensive examination of seventeenth-century
Amsterdam inventories, this could also be meant literally: religious and secular works could© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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often be found displayed beside one other in private homes. See John Michael Montias,“Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions,”in Art in History, History in Art: Studies in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, ed. David
Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Chicago, 1991), 331–72, especially 337–40; and John
Loughman and John Michael Montias, Public and Private Spaces: Works of Art inSeventeenth-Century Dutch Houses (Zwolle, 2000). For an overview of historical subject
matter popular in the Dutch Republic, see Albert Blankert, “Introduction,” in Gods, Saints andHeroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 18–26. For mythological subjects, see Eric Jan
Sluijter, De “Heydense fabulen” in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw: Schilderijen met
verhalende onderwerpen uit de klassieke mythologie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, circa
1590–1670 (Leiden, 2000); and for Old Testament subject matter, see Christian Tümpel, ed.,Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst(Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster,Westfälischen Landesmuseum) (Munich, 1994).
12. For an excellent discussion of the religious landscape of the United Provinces in this period,
see Shelley Perlove and Larry Silver, Rembrandt’s Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch
Golden Age (University Park, Penn., 2009), 17–67.
13. Blankert noted how biblical subjects were understood as historical events by seventeenthcentury artists and patrons, though he did not reflect on the display of religious art within
Catholic households or hidden churches in cities like Amsterdam and Haarlem—works thatwere intended for devotional purposes. The availability of the Bible in translation and the
popularization of illustrated editions contributed significantly to the popularization of biblicalimagery. See discussions in Albert Blankert, “Introduction,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes:
Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington,
D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum)(Washington, D.C., 1980), 18–26; Christian Tümpel, “Religious History Painting,” in Gods,
Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh.
cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 45–54; Christian Tümpel, “Die Ikonographie derAmsterdamer Historienmalerei in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts und die
Reformation,” Jahrbuch des deutschen Bibel-Archivs Hamburg 2 (1980): 127–58; ChristianTümpel, ed., Im Lichte Rembrandts. Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter derniederländischen Kunst (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel
Museum; Münster, Westfälischen Landesmuseum) (Munich, 1994). For the display of biblicalpaintings in private homes and public spaces, see Gabriël Pastor, “Biblische Historienbilder
im Goldene Zeitalter in Privatbesitz,” in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament imGoldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst, ed. Christian Tümpel (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Joods

HistorischMuseum;Jerusalem,

IsraelMuseum;Münster,

Westfälischen

Landesmuseum) (Munich, 1994), 122–33; and Marloes Huiskamp, “Öffentlicher Unterricht inGeschichte und Moral: Das Alte Testament in Rathäusern und anderen öffentlichen
Gebäuden,” in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter derniederländischen Kunst, ed. Christian Tümpel (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods HistorischMuseum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen Landesmuseum) (Munich,1994), 134–55.
14. Although Calvinism was the official religion of the Dutch Republic, the Dutch were not forced
to become members of the denomination, and adherents of many other sects were tolerated,
including not only Catholics and Jews but also Mennonites (Anabaptists), Lutherans,
Socinians, Collegiants, and Quakers. Catholic worship was outlawed in Amsterdam in 1581,
but the ban was not actively enforced, and Catholics continued to practice in secret. See
Xander van Eck, Clandestine Splendor: Painting for the Catholic Church in the Dutch
Republic (Zwolle, 2008); and Shelley Perlove and Larry Silver, Rembrandt’s Faith: Church
and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age (University Park, Penn., 2009), 45–61.
15. Christian Tümpel, “Religious History Painting,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in
the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Galleryof Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980),
52; and Volker Manuth, “Denomination and Iconography: The Choice of Subject Matter in the
Biblical Painting of the Rembrandt Circle,” Simiolus 22, no. 4 (1993–94): 235–52.
16. Gabriël Pastor notes how, within the private space of the home, people could haveunderstood and interpreted biblical themes in a variety of ways outside of their religious
convictions. Other factors that would have contributed to their understanding of religious
subject matter included education, intellectual interests, and social and personal
backgrounds. For further discussion, see Gabriël Pastor, “Biblische Historienbilder imGoldene Zeitalter in Privatbesitz,” in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen
Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst, ed. Christian Tümpel (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods
Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen Landesmuseum)(Munich, 1994), 122–33; John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century
Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions,” in Art in History, History in Art: Studies
in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Chicago,1991), 331–72; and John Michael Montias, Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam(Amsterdam, 2002), passim.
17. The possible early provenance of David and Uriah, for example, which has been longoverlooked in the scholarship, provides some insight into these dynamics. A series of auction
sales published by John Michael Montias several decades ago shows the ownership of apainting of “David and Uriah” changing hands over a short period of time. In the sale of thepossessions of Elbert Symonsz. Pool, a butter merchant in Amsterdam, on 4 December 1620,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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was a painting described as “a little piece by Lastman of David and Uriah.” What ispresumed to be the same painting appears for a second time in the sale of the possessions ofPieter Claesz. Codde, a ropemaker, also from Amsterdam, on 30 October 1624. Both men
were members of the Reformed Church, though some members of their families were Roman
Catholic. In the latter sale, the painting is simply described as “David and Uriah” without an
attribution. In both instances, the work appears with a pendant, described in the 1620 sale as“a painting of Bersabe [Bathsheba] by Pijnas,” and in 1624 as “a little painting of Bersabe
washing herself.” The paintings sold as a pair in the respective sales of 1620 and 1624 tomembers of the sellers’ families. The prices they fetched in each sale were so similar that thetwo auction lists must refer to the same painting. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine
whether the “David and Uriah” in the possession of Pool or Codde can be identified with theLeiden Collection painting or Lastman’s other version of this subject from 1611, now in
Detroit (see fig 4). No painting of Bathsheba by Jan or Jacob Pynas is known.
Montias points out that it would have been unusual for men of Pool or Codde’s social
standing to own history paintings by artists of the caliber of Lastman and Pynas, and hesuggests that their ownership of these works may have been the result of a personalconnection with the artist. Pieter Claesz. Codde had served as a witness at the signing of themarriage contract of the Roman Catholic jeweler Zeger Pietersz., Lastman’s brother, on 1
September 1601, with the artist present. However, the number of Lastman’s paintings that
subsequently appear in the inventories of members of the merchant class in Amsterdam
reflects a wealthier and more intellectual class of liefhebbers that was beginning to takeshape in the city. In this light, it seems less surprising that either Pool or Codde would havebeen early owners of the painting. See further discussion below and in John Michael Montias,“Trois ventes de tableaux aux enchères à Amsterdam vers 1620,” in Curiosité: Études
d’histoire de l’art en l’honneur d’Antoine Schnapper, ed. Olivier Bonfait (Paris, 1998), 285–95;
John Michael Montias, Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2002),
226–33; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem
kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie(Petersberg, 2011), 128–33.
18. The lack of documentation about Lastman’s early patrons or commissions makes it difficult toassess fully the relationship between the iconography of his paintings and the religious
convictions of his patrons. The only two known commissions of Lastman’s concern three nolonger extant scenes from the Life of Christ, which were executed for the Oratory atFrederiksborg Castle for the Danish king, Christian IV (Lastman was selected along withseveral other history painters, including Adriaen van Nieulandt and Jan Pynas, to complete
the series of 23 paintings), in 1619, and a painting of Jonah and the Whale (Düsseldorf,
Museum Kunstpalast) for an Amsterdam merchant, Isaac Bodens, in 1621. There is no
indication that Lastman worked exclusively for one religious denomination, and like many of
his contemporaries, he must have taken advantage of—and adapted to—the wealthy clientele© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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and burgeoning art market in Amsterdam (see additional discussion in note 17 and further
below). For discussion of Lastman’s patrons, see Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman:
Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus derantiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 44–45, 66, 133–39.
19. Christian Tümpel, ed., Het Oude testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw (Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum) (Zwolle, 1991),
10–13.
20. These artists have long been referred to as the “Pre-Rembrandtists” because of theirsignificance as Rembrandt’s “precursors,” but this nomenclature does not accurately reflect
their contribution to seventeenth-century painting. See Astrid Tümpel, ed., The PreRembrandtists (Exh. cat., Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery) (Sacramento, 1974);
Christian Tümpel, “The Iconography of the Pre-Rembrandtists,” in The Pre-Rembrandtists,
ed. Astrid Tümpel (Exh. cat., Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery) (Sacramento, 1974),
127–50; and Astrid Tümpel, “The Pre-Rembrandtists,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch
Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed., Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum)(Washington, D.C., 1980), 123–35. Eric Jan Sluijter has recently discussed how Lastman, by
painting in a novel style and developing a new type of biblical painting, encouraged a group of
likeminded artists to gather around him and follow his approach. He describes this notion as“clustering,” by which artists “cluster” around a successful painter and give shape to a
distinctive specialization in painting. He credits Lastman with spurring the tradition of history
painting in Amsterdam, which later came to include Rembrandt and his pupils. Eric Jan
Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650 (Amsterdam, 2017),
14–19.
21. This tradition was largely defined by a predilection to depict Old Testament subject matter.
See Christian Tümpel, “The Iconography of the Pre-Rembrandtists,” in The PreRembrandtists, ed. Astrid Tümpel (Exh. cat., Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery)(Sacramento, 1974), 127–50; Christian Tümpel, ed., Het Oude testament in de schilderkunst
van de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel
Museum) (Zwolle, 1991), 10–13.
22. For Lastman, see Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn, Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van
Rembrandt: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum het
Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991); Martina Sitt, ed., Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten?
(Exh. cat. Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006); and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter
Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit
Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011).
23. For further discussion of Lastman’s Italian sojourn, which may have included several other
cities, see Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie(Petersberg, 2011), 30–36, 145–54. Lastman’s period in Venice is documented by the drawn
copy (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum) he made ca. 1603 after Veronese’s Adoration of theShepherds in the Cappella dei Setaioli der Chiesa dei Crociferi. While in Rome, Lastman also
went on sketching trips in the countryside; see his drawing View of the Palatinate, 1606
(Private Collection, Germany). In David and Uriah, for example, Amy Golahny has shown how
Lastman incorporated motifs and poses from Michelangelo’s angel in Bologna and sculptureof Giuliano de’Medici in Florence for the pose of David. See Amy Golahny, “Reflections on
Caravaggio, Lastman, and Rembrandt,” in Culture figurative a confronto tra Fiandre e Italia
dal XV al XVII secolo: Atti del convegno internazionale Nord/Sud: Ricezioni fiamminghe al diqua delle Alpi: Prospettive di studio e indagini tecniche, ed. Anna De Floriani and Maria Clelia
Galassi (Milan, 2008), 157–65.
24. For Lastman’s relationship to Caravaggio, Bril, and Elsheimer, see Christian Tico
Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis derWerke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 33, 45–47,
149, 152–53, and 155–62. Seifert points out that Elsheimer had achieved “monumentality in aminiature format” in his works, which were conceived with a close eye to their textual
sources, qualities that would be important for Lastman’s painting.
25. Astrid Tümpel, ed., The Pre-Rembrandtists (Exh. cat., Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery)(Sacramento, 1974), 132–38, 142–46; Christian Tümpel, “Die Ikonographie der Amsterdamer
Historienmalerei in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts und die Reformation,” Jahrbuch
des deutschen Bibel-Archivs Hamburg 2 (1980): 135–40, 146–52; and Christian Tico Seifert,
Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit
Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 162–76.
26. Lastman’s vast literary interests have been widely recognized. Upon his death in 1633, theartist’s library contained around 150 books, an exceptional number for the time. Although thetitles were not indicated in the inventory, Golahny and Seifert have suggested a probable listof ancient and contemporary texts based on Lastman’s works and likely education in a Latin
school, where he would have first encountered this wide range of ancient texts. With the
exception of Euripides, Herodotus, and Lucian, nearly all of the other ancient texts would
have been available in Dutch translation. See Amy Golahny, Rembrandt’s Reading: The
Artist’s Bookshelf of Ancient Poetry and History (Amsterdam, 2003), 71; Christian T. Seifert,“Pieter Lastman, Constrijcken history Schilder tot Amsterdam—kunstreicher Historienmaler zu
Amsterdam,” in Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt (Exh. cat.
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006), 17; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter
Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit
Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 71–72, 97–111, 119–21.
27. Kurt Bauch first called Lastman’s tendency for exacting historical and narrative details© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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a “monströse Sachlichkeit.” See the discussion in Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman:
Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus derantiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 139–44.
28. Written in 1618, though only published in 1620, Gerbier’s poem was a tribute to Hendrick
Goltzius and included an imagined procession of the most famous artists gathered tocelebrate him. Lastman was singled out for high praise in Gerbier’s lines: “Lastman, d’eer
d’Amstels voet, die wil ick hier aen voeghen, Op wiens Const ‘tweeld’ rigst oogh moest
sterren met genoege Liefhebbers sit vry neer, en met aendacht eens siet Oft niet der Consten
mergh Pictura u dar biet.” By the time Gerbier composed the poem, Lastman was alreadywell known in the Netherlands. See Otto Hirschmann, “Balthasar Gerbiers eer ende ClaeghtDight ter eeren van Henricus Goltius,” Oud Holland 38 (1920): 104–25; David Freedberg,“Fame, Convention and Insight: On the Relevance of Fornebergh and Gerbier,” in The
Ringling Museum of Art Journal: Papers Presented at the International Rubens Symposium,1982 (1983): 236–59; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und
Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie
und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 65–67. For discussion of the early provenance of Lastman’s
painting, see note 17.
29. Christian Tümpel, “Religious History Painting,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in
the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Galleryof Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980),
48; Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn, Pieter Lastman: leermeester van Rembrandt: The
Man Who Taught Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle,1991); and Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in theArts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg,
Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 179–202.
30. David’s letter commanded that Uriah be placed on the front lines of battle “so that he may be
struck down and die” (2 Samuel 11:15).
31. Infrared imaging revealed that David originally looked Uriah in the eye. Lastman made thiscompositional and narrative change. See the entry and technical summary in this catalogue.
32. Holbein’s woodcut was influential for a number of late sixteenth-century Bibles. See Erika
Michael, “The Iconographic History of Hans Holbein the Younger’s Icones and Their
Reception in the Later Sixteenth Century,” Harvard Library Bulletin 3, no. 3 (1992): 28–47. For
Holbein’s woodcut and other illustrations of this subject, see Bart Rosier, The Bible in Print:
Netherlandish Bible Illustration in the Sixteenth Century (Leiden, 1997), 1: 37, 65; 2: fig. 275,
282. In 1638, Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77) executed a more elaborate print of David giving
the letter to Uriah, after a drawing by Holbein.
33. Bart Rosier, The Bible in Print: Netherlandish Bible Illustration in the Sixteenth Century(Leiden, 1997), 2: fig. 297. At least one painting of the subject, from ca. 1560 by Hans
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Vredeman de Vries (1527–ca. 1606) and Gilles Mostart (1528–1598), is known, as is ananonymous tapestry in the Musée de la Renaissance, Paris. For an overview of thepainting’s iconographic precedents, see Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings ofDavid’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and 1619,” in The Primacy of the Image in Northern
European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry Silver, ed. Taylor Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, andAshley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 500–514.
34. For discussion of King David, including John Calvin’s commentary on his moral shortcomings
that led to “self-awareness and deep feelings that provided him with true knowledge of theheart,” see Shelley Perlove and Larry Silver, Rembrandt’s Faith: Church and Temple in the
Dutch Golden Age (University Park, Penn., 2009), 120–26. For an alternative reading of thepainting, which takes into account its potential political dimension, see the entry in thiscatalogue.
35. Aristotle, Poetics XI: 1–4, cited in Samuel Henry Butcher, Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry andFine Art, with a Critical Text and Translation of ‘The Poetics’ (New York, 1951), 41. Albert
Blankert first argued that the concept of peripeteia was an important narrative tool used by
Ferdinand Bol and within Rembrandt’s larger circle. He called attention to these artists’preference for representing moments of revelation or the appearance of the divine. Amy
Golahny and Eric Jan Sluijter have taken up more recent and nuanced discussions of the useof this term in the work of Lastman and Rembrandt, which have helped to shape mydiscussion. See Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk,
1982), 34–36; Albert Blankert, “Introduction,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in
the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Galleryof Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980),
26; Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in the Arts ofthe Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg,
Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 179–202; Eric Jan Sluijter,“Rembrandt’s Portrayal of the Passions and Vondel’s ‘staetveranderinge,’” in The Passions in
the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, eds. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman
Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 283–301. For
discussion of peripeteia in the context of depictions of Cimon and Pero (or Roman Charity) inthe seventeenth century, see Michiko Fukaya, “Aristotelian Peripeteia? The Backward Gazein Depictions of Cimon and Pero in the Early Seventeenth-Century Netherlands,” in Aspectsof Narrative in Art History: Proceedings of the International Workshop for Young Researchers,
Held at the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 2–3 December 2013, ed.
Kayo Hirakawa (Kyoto, 2014), 47–60.
36. When recognition is combined with reversal, as Aristotle stated, it “will produce either pity or
fear; and actions producing these effects are those which, by our definition, Tragedy
represents.” Aristotle, Poetics XI: 1–4, cited in Samuel Henry Butcher, Aristotle’s Theory of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Poetry and Fine Art, with a Critical Text and Translation of ‘The Poetics’ (New York, 1951),
41.
37. Vondel first translated this term in the preface to his play Jephta of 1640/59. It would becomea key concept of his late tragedies. See Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments ofRecognition,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S.
Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010):
181–83. Golahny has suggested that Lastman’s paintings may have impacted Vondel
himself.
38. Vondel, as quoted in Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The
Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman
Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 183n8.
39. A number of Lastman’s works indicate that he enjoyed a long engagement with
contemporary theater in Amsterdam, often combining ancient sources with seventeenthcentury drama. For Lastman’s relationship to contemporary theater, see Kurt Bauch, Derfrühe Rembrandt und seine Zeit, Studien zur geschichtlichen Bedeutung seines Frühstils(Berlin, 1960), 68–75; Christian Tümpel, “The Iconography of the Pre-Rembrandtists,” in The
Pre-Rembrandtists, ed. Astrid Tümpel (Exh. cat. Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery)(Sacramento, 1974), 146; Christian Tico Seifert, “Pieter Lastman, Constrijcken history
Schilder tot Amsterdam—kunstreicher Historienmaler zu Amsterdam,” in Pieter Lastman: in
Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt (Exh. cat. Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich,2006): 16–17; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit
einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie(Petersberg, 2011), 111–17. Lastman also knew a number of Amsterdam playwrights
personally, including Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero (1585–1618) and Joost von den Vondel.
40. Heinsius’s translation and commentaries were well known across Europe and had asignificant impact on contemporaries such as Vondel and Hugo Grotius. Daniel Heinsius, De
Tragoediae constitutione: On Plot in Tragedy, trans. Paul R. Sellin and John J. McManmon(Northridge, 1971).
41. Aristotle lists the different modes of recognition that relate to tragedy, including from thetoken, or inanimate object, which was the least inventive, to memory, reasoning, and so forth,but he states that the best kind of recognition derives from the events themselves. Both
Aristotle and Heinsius cite ancient narratives in which these modes of recognition may beobserved,

such

as

Iphigenia

recognizing

OrestesandPyladesorUlyssesinHomer’s Odyssey. Aristotle, Poetics XVI, cited in Samuel Henry Butcher, Aristotle’s Theory
of Poetry and Fine Art, with a Critical Text and Translation of ‘The Poetics’ (New York, 1951),
57–61; and Daniel Heinsius, De Tragoediae constitutione: On Plot in Tragedy, trans. Paul R.
Sellin and John J. McManmon (Northridge, 1971), chapter 6, 39–42.
42. On multiple occasions, Lastman referred to ancient narrative examples mentioned by© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Heinsius, such as in Iphigenia Recognizing Orestes and Pylades, 1614 (Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam) and Ulysses Meeting Nausicaa, 1619 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). For Lastman’s
use of Heinsius, see Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The
Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman
Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 183; Christian Tico
Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis derWerke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 78, 84, 296;
Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and
1619,” in The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry
Silver, ed. Taylor Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 505–6.
43. Christian Tümpel, “Die Rezeption der Jüdischen Altertümer des Flavius Josephus in den
holländischen Historiendarstellungen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Wort und Bild in derniederländischen Kunst und Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. Herman Vekeman
and Justus Müller-Hofstede (Erfstadt, 1984); and Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn, Pieter
Lastman: Leermeester van Rembrandt: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991), 108–9.
44. Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and
1619,” in The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry
Silver, ed. Taylor Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 509,
suggests that another source may still come to light to explain Lastman’s inclusion of thescribe, whether another text or evidence of a Latin school play that he may have seen.
45. The helmet is a parade burgonet all’antica, which was made by Filippo Negroli (ca.
1510–1579) in Milan sometime around the early 1530s. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640)
acquired the helmet in 1628, but not before it had been seen and copied by several artists in
Amsterdam. Jeremy Wood characterized Lastman’s representation of the helmet in Davidand Uriah as a “free version.” See Jeremy Wood, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. Part
26, Copies and Adaptations from Renaissance and Later Artists, Italian Artists. Vol. 3, Artists
Working in Central Italy and France (London, 2011), 1: 399–400, no. 247.
46. Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and
1619,” in The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry
Silver, ed. Taylor Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 500–514.
47. Lastman revised his approach to the depiction of historical subjects on other occasions. For
instance, he depicted the story of Ulysses Meeting Nausicaa in 1609 (Herzog Anton UlrichMuseum, Braunschweig) and again in 1619 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich).
48. Alan Chong, ed., Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629–1631(Exh. cat. Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) (Zwolle, 2000), appendix, 135–36.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. made the latter observation about Huygens’s statement in Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr., “Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old Master,” in Jan Lievens: A Dutch© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Master Rediscovered, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National
Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis)(New Haven, 2008), 10. Huygens’s praise for Rembrandt’s painting also distinguished himfrom Lievens, who, Huygens believed, was better suited to painting on a large scale.
49. For some discussion of this topic, see, Wolfgang Stechow, “Some Observations on Lastman
and Rembrandt,” Oud Holland 84, nos. 2–3 (1969): 148–62; Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman:
Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed.
Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60(Leiden, 2010): 196–98.
50. This may have been because Lastman’s own understanding of how to paint a history
painting had evolved by the time Rembrandt arrived in his studio. Lievens’s andRembrandt’s training with Lastman would have also included an introduction to graphic
traditions and a range of ancient and literary sources. See, for example, Christian Tümpel,“Pieter Lastman and Rembrandt,” in Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van Rembrandt: The Man
Who Taught Rembrandt, ed. Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991), 54–84. For Rembrandt’s depictions of thepassions, especially in his self-portraits, see H. Perry Chapman, “Reclaiming the Inner
Rembrandt: Passion and the Early Self-Portraits,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early
Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands
Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 232–61.
51. Alan Chong, ed., Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629–1631.
(Exh. cat. Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) (Zwolle, 2000), appendix, 135–36.
52. There was a “Lastman revival” in Amsterdam in the mid-1630s at the time of the master’s
death, and Rembrandt continued to be inspired by his work. He made a number of copies
after Lastman’s works and painted his own versions of certain subjects: Pieter Lastman, The
Expulsion of Hagar, 1612 (Hamburger Kunsthalle) / Rembrandt, The Expulsion of Hagar,
1637, etching and drypoint (Museum het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam); Pieter Lastman,
Susanna and the Elders, 1614 (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) / Rembrandt after Pieter Lastman,
Susanna and the Elders, ca. 1637, red chalk (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin); Pieter Lastman,
Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, 1614 (present whereabouts unknown) / Rembrandt after Pieter
Lastman, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, ca. 1637, red chalk (Musée Bonnat, Bayonne); andPieter Lastman, Joseph Distributing Corn in Egypt, 1612 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin) /Rembrandt after Pieter Lastman, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, black chalk (Graphische
Sammlung Albertina, Vienna). Thus, Lastman’s ideas continued in Rembrandt’s own
teaching and practice well beyond his training with the master in 1625. For further discussion,see Christian Tümpel, “Pieter Lastman and Rembrandt,” in Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van
Rembrandt: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt, ed. Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn (Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991), 65–84; Martina Sitt, “Pieter© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Lastman und Rembrandt—von der stummen Sprache des Körpers zur Verdichtung von
Emotion,” in Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt (Exh. cat. Hamburg,
Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006), 72–85.
53. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 34–36.
54. Lastman depicted episodes in the life of Hagar on several occasions: The Dismissal of Hagar,
1612 (Hamburger Kunsthalle); Hagar and the Angel, 1614 (Los Angeles County Museum ofArt); and Hagar and the Angel in the Desert, 1621 (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem).
Rembrandt treated the subject in a drawing from around 1650: The Angel Appears to Hagar
and Ishmael in the Wilderness, reed pen with touches of opaque white (Hamburger
Kunsthalle). He depicted “Hagar’s Dismissal” in several drawings and etchings in the late1630s and into the 1650s. For example: Rembrandt, Abraham Casting Out Hagar andIshmael, 1637, etching and drypoint (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
55. See the entry in this catalogue.
56. See the entry in this catalogue.
57. Vondel expressed this in a poem that he wrote on Thomas de Keyser’s portrait of Lastman,
which is now lost. Vondel compared Lastman not only to Apelles, but also to Rubens. Joostvan den Vondel, “Op d’afbeeldinge van Peter Lastman, den Apelles onzer eeuwe,”
in Hollantsch Parnas, of verscheide gedichten, ed. T. van Domselaar (Amsterdam, 1660),
151.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection