Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah
Arent de Gelder(Dordrecht 1645 – 1727 Dordrecht)

1690s
oil on canvas
112 x 155 cm
indistinctly signed in dark paint, along upperedge, right of center: “A(??)lder f.”
AG-103© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Manuth, Volker. “Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed.
Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/edna-entrustingtobias-with-sarah/ (archived May 2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrativeoccurs.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Arent de Gelder studied with Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69) for at least two

Comparative Figures

years in the early 1660s, at a time when his master created some of his
greatest paintings, among them the Staalmeesters (The Sampling Officials ofthe Amsterdam Draper’s Guild) of 1662 (fig 1). The stylistic and thematic
impact of these works on the young artist remained strong for decades
thereafter. For example, De Gelder learned from the Staalmeesters how touse a table with a heavy orange-red tablecloth as a compositional focus for
his figure paintings. He also emulated Rembrandt’s expressive painting
techniques, including scratching away paint with a palette knife, to create
works with vibrant and lively surfaces, often with a palette of olive, brown,

Fig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Staalmeesters (The Sampling
Officials of the Amsterdam
Draper’s Guild), 1662, oil oncanvas, 191.5cm × 279 cm,
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SK-C-6

ochre, red, and orange colors. The importance of Rembrandt’s inspiration isparticularly evident in this evocative painting, Edna Entrusting Tobias withSarah, which De Gelder’s executed some thirty years after his
apprenticeship with that master.
Like Rembrandt, De Gelder based a number of his biblical scenes on books
from the Apocrypha, particularly the story of the pious, blind, andimpoverished Tobit.[1] Although the Book of Tobit was not accepted by theProtestants as part of the biblical canon, it was included at the very end of
the authorized translation of the Bible of the Dutch Reformed Church, the socalled Statenvertaling of 1637. In the preface to the Bible, the Dutch
theologians responsible for the translation specifically prohibited the readingof the Apocrypha during the divine service. Nevertheless, the Book of Tobit

Fig 2. Arent de Gelder, Tobias
Welcomed by His Mother Hanna,
1690/1700, oil on canvas, 87.5 x
111 cm, Museum
Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, onloan from the Cultural Heritage
Agency of the Netherlands,Amersfoort/Rijswijk, inv. RMCC
S129

was recommended for its moralistic overtones and gained popularity during
the seventeenth century.
De Gelder’s Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah features Tobit’s son Tobias,
who had undertaken a long journey on his father’s behalf to the city ofEcbatana in Media.[2] In Ecbatana, Tobias and his traveling companion who,unbeknownst to him, was the Archangel Raphael, met with one of Tobit’s
kinsmen, Raguel, and his wife, Edina. The couple’s daughter Sarah wasboth beautiful and wise, and Tobias fell in love with her. Sarah, however, wasbeset by a demon, who had already killed each of her seven bridegrooms
when they entered the bridal chamber. Acting on the advice of Raphael, whoalso promised his help to conquer the demon, Tobias obtained Raguel’spermission to marry Sarah.[3] De Gelder’s painting focuses on the momentthat Raguel’s wife, Edna, seated calmly between Sarah and Tobias, entrusts
the young Tobias with her daughter.[4] Raguel, seen in profile at the near sideof the table, gazes at his wife and reacts to her words with an expressivegesture.[5]© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Edna Entrusting Tobias with SarahPage 4 of 10

The words to which Raguel reacts are recorded in chapter ten, verse thirteenof the book of Tobit, where Edna says: “I commit my daughter unto thee as aspecial trust; do not bring her pain.”[6] The richly decorated gloves of young
Tobias allude to the important role of wedding gloves as a marriage pledge inseventeenth-century wedding ceremonies.[7] De Gelder likely based thephysiognomies on live models. Whether he did this with the intention ofmaking his figures more convincing or to satisfy the wish of a patron whomight have ordered a portrait historié is not known.
The identification of De Gelder’s painting with this text from the Book ofTobit has been questioned in the past because of the young ages of Tobias
and Sarah.[8] By the end of the seventeenth century, however, a long pictorial
tradition had been established in which Tobias was depicted as a young boy.
A number of paintings and drawings from Rembrandt’s circle, for example,
show Tobias about the same age as the boy represented here.[9] Moreover,
the Statenvertaling refers to Tobias explicitly as a jongelinck (young man)and to Sarah as het dochterken (the little daughter).[10]An alternative passage in the Book of Tobit (7:13), which describes thewedding of Tobias and Sarah, has in the past been wrongly associated withthis painting. In that text it is written, “then he [Raguel] called his daughter
Sarah, and she came to her father, and he took her by the hand, and gave
her to be wife to Tobias, saying, Behold, take her after the law of Moses, andlead her away to thy father. And he blessed them.” Thereafter, a marriage
contract was drawn and signed. De Gelder did depict this subject in apainting now in Brighton.[11] In the Brighton work he showed the drafting andscrutinizing of the marriage contract following, it seems, the example of Jan
Steen (1626–79), who painted at least three versions of this subject.[12] Asidefrom the fact that the present painting does not depict the marriage contractof Tobias and Sarah, the gesture of Raguel could hardly be interpreted as ablessing. Instead, Raguel’s wife, Edna, who holds the hands of the young
couple with warmth and affection, is the central figure, as would beappropriate for the moment in which she entrusts Tobias with Sarah.
A painting by De Gelder in Utrecht (fig 2), incorrectly interpreted as Edna
Entrusting Tobias with Sarah, differs in the scene’s much more modest
setting and in the fact that one of the two female figures is an oldwoman.[13] She resembles Anna, the mother of Tobias, as Rembrandt andhis circle traditionally portrayed her. Werner Sumowski correctly identified thesubject of the Utrecht picture as Anna greeting or blessing Tobias upon his
return with Sarah.[14] Here, too, De Gelder followed the text in the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Statenvertaling (Tobit 11:9), which relates that Anna greeted her son even
before Tobit did.[15]Von Moltke’s opinion that the Leiden Collection painting dates from the early
1700s is incorrect.[16] The rich, fanciful dress of Sarah and her mother,
particularly Edna’s square neckline, open gown tied at the waist, and thelong streamers that attach the back of her headdress, are consistent withfemale fashions of the 1690s. Although very few paintings by De Gelder fromthe 1690s can be reliably dated, in comparison with paintings from the 1680s
it seems that his brushwork, especially in the detailed characterization of thelavishly decorated costumes, became much finer and more detailed, aneffect particularly seen in his rendering of transparent veils. As with Sarah’sveil, in most cases he often rendered these delicate garments with little morethan fine white contour lines.
Raguel and Tobias, with their sumptuous cloaks and curiously shaped,
multicolored turbans, are dressed in a more Orientalizing fashion than Sarahand Edna. De Gelder’s knowledge of genuine Oriental dress can bedetected in Tobias’s yellow kaftan and heron-feather aigrette. A portrait
medallion with the image of a head in profile, similar to the one hanging fromTobias’s neck, is also featured in De Gelder’s painting Judah’s Humble
Supplication to Joseph, ca. 1685.[17]Arnold Houbraken, who was also from Dordrecht and well acquainted withDe Gelder, described the artist’s use of studio props: “But our De Gelder
has collected, no less so than he [Rembrandt], a chest of all kinds of clothes,hangings, firearms and bayonets, armor, and so on, including shoes andclogs; and the attic and walls of his studio are hung with draperies andembroidered cloths and veils, some intact, others torn. . . . From this richstock he takes the requisites for his pictures.”[18] Taking Houbraken’s
account of De Gelder’s use of studio props into consideration, one would not
be surprised to find that the tablecloth might be identical with “1 root fluweltaefelkleed” (one red velvet tablecloth) documented in the inventory of theartist’s estate in 1727.[19]- Volker Manuth, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah
Page 6 of 10Endnotes

1. See Julius Held, Rembrandt and the Book of Tobit, The Gehenna Essays in Art 2(Northampton, Mass., 1964), also published as “Rembrandt und das Buch Tobias,” in Julius
Held, Rembrandt-Studien (Leipzig, 1983), 78–100.
2. The purpose of the trip was to gather silver that his blind father had deposited with hiskinsman Gabael.
3. During their wedding night Tobias exorcised the demon by burning the liver and the heart of
the fish which he had caught in the river Tibris and which he would later use to cure his oldfather’s blindness.
4. The literature contains various interpretations of the theme of Arent de Gelder’s painting. In
the earliest monograph on the painter, Lilienfeld suggests that it represents a biblical scene,
perhaps Young Tobias in the House of Raguel (see Karl Lilienfeld, Arent de Gelder: Sein
Leben und seine Kunst [The Hague, 1914], 173, no. 114.) Van Fossen and Von Moltke
agreed with him (see David R. van Fossen, “The Painting of Aert de Gelder” [Ph.D. diss.
Harvard University, 1969], 264, no. 64; Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent de Gelder,Dordrecht 1645–1727 [Doornspijk, 1994], 80–81, no. 43). Sumowski, who disagreed with theidentification of the scene as a story from the Old Testament, assumed it to be a “subject ofantiquity in a feudal setting” (Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandtschüler, 6 vols.
[Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94], 6:3713, no. 2293). See also Volker Manuth, in Inaugural
Exhibition of Old Master Paintings (Exh. cat. New York, Otto Naumann Ltd.) (New York,1995), 133–36, no. 30 (“Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah”); and Volker Manuth in Dirck
Bijker, et al., eds., Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), Rembrandts laatste leerling (Exh. cat.
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) (Ghent, 1998), 188–89,
no. 29 (“Tobias in het huis van Edna and Sarah” [Tobias in the House of Edna and Sarah]).
5. The X-radiograph reveals that De Gelder originally placed a figure between Edna and Sarah.
Whether this figure was the first position of Sarah or another figure altogether is not clear.
6. Book of Tobit 10:13: “ik geef u mijn dochter over als een vertrouwd pand, bedroef haar niet.”
Edna’s farewell words derive from the Greek translation of the Bible, the Septuagint, but do
not occur in either the Latin (Vulgate) or Luther’s translation. The Greek text was the basis ofthe Dutch Bible produced in 1637—the so-called Statenvertaling—which explains the inclusionof this scene and its subsequent treatment by Arent de Gelder. On this subject, see ChristianTümpel et al., Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter derniederländischen Kunst (Exh. cat. Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum; Amsterdam,
Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum) (Zwolle, 1994), 296, no. 63, andVolker Manuth, “‘De voorwerpen van zyn Historische vertooningen zyn meest Bybelstof…’:
De bijbelse historiestukken van Arent de Gelder; Keuze van onderwerpen en iconografie,” in© 2020 The Leiden CollectionEdna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah
Page 7 of 10Dirck Bijker, et al., eds., Arent de Gelder (1645–1727): Rembrandts laatste leerling (Exh. cat.
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) (Ghent, 1998), 51–69,
esp. 61–63.
7. For the gloves in seventeenth-century Dutch wedding ceremonies, see Bianca M. du Mortier,“De handschoen in de huwelijkssymboliek van de zeventiende eeuw,” Bulletin van het
Rijksmuseum 32 (1984): 189–201.
8. David R. van Fossen, “The Painting of Aert de Gelder” (PhD diss. Harvard University, 1969),
264; Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandtschüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz,1983–94), 6:3713, no. 2293.
9. Compare for example Rembrandt’s pen and brush drawing Tobias Frightened by the Fish ofca. 1650 in the Copenhagen Printroom; see Otto Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, ed.
Eva Benesch, 6 vols. (London, 1973), 3: no. 638 (ill.).
10. “So seyde de Engel tot den Iongelinck, Broeder wy sullen heden tot Raguël ter herbergegaen.” Tobit 6:13: “ende het dochterken is schoon ende verstandich.” Tobit 6:12.
11. The Marriage Contract, ca. 1670, oil on canvas, 94.6 x 143.5 cm, Art Gallery and Museum,Brighton, inv. no. FA000014. See Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandtschüler, 6 vols.
(Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 2: no. 733 (ill.), and Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent deGelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727 (Doornspijk, 1994), 81, no. 44 (ill.)
12. The three versions (excluding several variants and copies) are: (1) M. H. de Young MemorialMuseum, San Francisco; (2) Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig; and (3) unknown
private collection. See Baruch D. Kirschenbaum, The Religious and Historical Paintings ofJan Steen (New York, 1977), 121, 25/487, fig. 86; 122, 25a/457, fig. 66; and 123, 25b, fig. 77.
13. Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, inv. RMCC S129 (on loan from the Instituut Collectie Nederland).
For an overview of the identification of the subject matter of the painting, see Joachim
Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727 (Doornspijk, 1994), 81–82, no.
45 (plate XXIV).
14. Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandtschüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 2:
no. 762.
15. “En Anna liep toe en viel haar zoon aan de hals, en zeide tot hem: Kind, ik heb u gezien,thans wil ik wel sterven; en zij weenden beiden” (Statenvertaling, Tobias 11:9).
16. Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727 (Doornspijk, 1994),
80.
17. Dirck Bijker et al., Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), Rembrandts laatste leerling (Exh. cat.
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum) (Ghent, 1998), no. 14.
See also Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandtschüler in vier Bänden, 6 vols. (Landauand Pfalz, 1983–94), 5: no. 2090a, and 2: no. 735.
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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18. “Maar onze de Gelder, heeft niet minder dan hy [Rembrandt] een voddekraam vanallerhande soort van kleederen, behangsels, schiet-en steekgeweer, harnassen, enz. tot
schoenen en muilen inkluis, by een verzamelt; en de zoldering en de wanden van zyn
schildervertrek, zyn behangen met floersche en gestikte zyde bewindselen en sluijers,sommige geheel, andere gescheurt…Uit dezen ryken voorraad haalt hy de toerustinge zynerbeelden.” Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en
schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718–21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753;reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980), 3 :208.
19. Published in Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727(Doornspijk, 1994), 203.

Provenance
E. J. de Court van Valkenswaard (his sale, Dordrecht, Mak van Way, 12 April 1847, no. 49[64 guilders to De Gruijter]).
H. Konow, Copenhagen, 1914.
T. Kroepelien Collection, Bergen, Norway, by 1961; and by descent [Thomas Agnew andSons, Ltd., London, 1989; Douwes Fine Art, Amsterdam, 1994; Otto Naumann, Ltd., NewYork, 1995].
Alfred Bader, by 1995 [Otto Naumann Ltd., New York, 2004].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2004.

Exhibition History
Copenhagen, Kunstforeningen I Kobenhavn, “Billender af gammel kunst,” 1891, no. 60.
New York, Otto Naumann Ltd., “Inaugural Exhibition of Old Master Paintings,” 12 January–1
March 1995, 133–36, no. 30.
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, “Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), Rembrandts LaatsteLeerling.” 10 October 1998–17 January 1999; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 17January–19 May 1999, no. 29 [lent by Otto Naumann].
Budapest, Szépm?vészeti Múzeum, “Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age,” 31 October
2014–15 February 2015, no. 118 [lent by the present owner].
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, 5 May, 2017–30 April
2019 [lent by the present owner].
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Edna Entrusting Tobias with SarahPage 9 of 10References
Lilienfeld, Karl. Arent de Gelder: Sein Leben und seine Kunst. The Hague, 1914, 145,173–74, no. 114.
Van Fossen, David Raymond. “The Paintings of Aert de Gelder.” PhD diss. Harvard
University, 1969, 264, no. 64
Von Moltke, Joachim Wilhelm. Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727. Doornspijk, 1994, 80,
no. 43, fig. 43.
Sumowski, Werner.

Die Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6 vols. Landau and Pfalz,1983–94, 6: 3713, no. 2293; 3887, fig. 2293.
Manuth, Volker. “Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah.” In Inaugural Exhibition of Old MasterPaintings. Exh. cat. New York, Otto Naumann Ltd. New York, 1995, 133–36, no. 30.
Manuth, Volker. “Tobias in het huis van Edna en Raguel.” In Arent de Gelder: (1645–1727):
Rembrandts laatste leerling. Edited by Dirk Bijker, et. al., 188–89, no. 29. Exh. cat. Dordrecht,Dordrechts Museum; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Ghent, 1998.
Cavalli-Bjo?rkman, Go?rel. “Tobias in the House of Edna and Raguel.” In Rembrandt ochhans tid: Människan i Centrum / Rembrandt and His Age: Focus on Man. Edited by Go?relCavalli- Bjo?rkman, 404–5, no. 118. Exh. cat. Budapest, Szépm?vészeti Múzeum. Budapest,2014.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of medium-weight, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins removed,
has been lined. Cusping along all four edges indicates the original dimensions have not beensignificantly altered. There is a handwritten inscription and hand-drawn circle but no wax
collection seals, stencils, paper labels or import stamps along the lining or stretcher reverse.
The ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by a light-brown underlayer that remains
visible through the glazes of paint applied along the majority of the foreground and background.
The paint has been applied more opaquely through the flesh tones and drapery, with areas of low
impasto along areas of white highlight associated with all four figures. Areas of detail in all fourfigures have been scratched into glazes of wet paint with the back of a brush.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Theimages and X-radiograph reveal that Sarah’s head was shifted to the left and positioned slightly
higher during the paint stage and was originally painted with more radio-opaque pigments than
the four faces in the final composition. A pentimento indicates that Edna’s shoulder was shifted to© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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the right and that Sarah and Edna were originally positioned closer together. Pentimenti underRaquel’s chin and throughout Tobias’s lower face indicate shifts in the position of their faces.
The painting is indistinctly signed in dark paint right of center along the upper edge and isundated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2002 prior to its acquisition in 2004. The painting is infair condition and state of preservation with areas of abrasion and out-of-tone restorations along
the background.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection