Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat
Circle of Rembrandt van Rijnprobably early 1650s
oil on canvas
114 x 96.2 cm
GE-101© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited
by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–23. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/(archived December 2023).
A PDF of every version of this entry 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.

The Old Testament story of Joseph fueled the imagination of Dutch artists, not only

Comparative Figures

for the marvelous exploits of the young leader, but also for the jealousies, deceits andbetrayals that mark the complex narrative of his life.[1] The cause of many of thosejealousies was the coat of many colors that his father, Jacob, had presented to him asa sign that he was the favored son. The tragic consequences, when Joseph’s brothers
turned against him, are described in Genesis 37:12–35. When Joseph, having been
sent by his father to report on the status of his brothers who were herding sheep,
found them in the land of Dothan, his brethren conspired to kill him. However,
Reuben, one of the brothers, dissuaded them from committing fratricide and, instead,they threw Joseph into a pit. Although Reuben intended to rescue Joseph and returnFig 1. Jan Pynas, Jacob Shown
Joseph’s Bloody Coat, 1618, oil on
panel, The State Hermitage Museum,
St. Petersburg, inv. 5588

him to his father, Joseph was taken to Egypt after the others sold him to passing
Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. Reuben, upon discovering that Joseph was
missing, then conspired with his brothers to deceive Jacob into believing that Joseph
had been eaten by a wild beast. To feign his death they dipped Joseph’s coat in the
blood of a goat, which they then took to the aged patriarch. Seeing the bloody coat,
Jacob tore his garments in grief, donned sackcloth, and, taking no comfort in his
family’s consolations, mourned Joseph’s loss.
In this dramatic visualization of the story, one feels the full horror of the momentFig 2. Jan Lievens, Jacob Receiving
Joseph’s Bloody Coat, probably mid
1640s, oil on canvas, Collection
Joseph and Lieve Guttmann, USA

Jacob sees the bloody coat held up before him, and can almost hear Jacob’s anguished
cry piercing through the late afternoon darkness. His flailing arms and legs reveal aninconsolable man devastated by the dreadful news that a wild beast has killed his
favorite son. The biblical text implies that Reuben, presumably the tall gesticulating
shepherd standing just behind the brother holding the bloody coat, was the spokesman
for the brothers. Other family members, including a praying man in the lower left, try© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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to support Jacob physically and emotionally, but to no avail. Two dogs, one drawn tothe blood on the cloak and one to the aged patriarch, reinforce the drama of the story.
Other figures, curious about the uproar but not daring to come too close, congregate
near the arched entranceway of the courtyard.
Over the course of the seventeenth century, a number of Dutch artists depicted thisbiblical story of betrayal and deceit, beginning with Jan Pynas (1581–1631), who
executed his large panel painting Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat in 1618 (fig 1).
Pynas likewise poignantly depicted an inconsolable Jacob grieving over the bloody
coat, surrounded by caring members of his family. Jan Lievens (1607–74) must have
known Pynas’s forceful representation of this scene when he depicted this subject in alarge painting in the mid 1640s (fig 2). As in Pynas’s image, Jacob, having beenshown the bloody cloak, sits with crossed arms and refuses to be comforted by his
family. Lievens intensified the dramatic moment by bringing the action closer to theFig 3. Gerbrandt van den Eeckhout,
Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat, c.
1665, pen and brown ink and graywashes, Musée du Louve, Paris,22.906viewer and eliminating compositional elements that Pynas had included to place thescene within a larger narrative framework. Lievens also altered Jacob’s posture,making it more rigid, and depicted him with his eyes closed, signaling that he has
hardened his heart to the entreaties of those around him.
Joost van den Vondel expressly cited Pynas’s painting as a source of inspiration for
his tragedy Joseph in Dothan, published in 1640. In his introduction to the play, Van
den Vondel wrote that “in the closing [passages] of this work, [we] have tried toemulate with words, as far as we can, the painter’s colors, drawings, and passions.”[2]The passions Van den Vondel was able to invoke are evident in the concerns ofJacob’s eldest son, Reuben, who, imagining how the scene would unfold when Jacob
was shown the bloody coat, mused:
Methinks I see with what a piteous gestureHe throws up his arms and sinks backwards,
His head bare; his whole countenance assuming
The nature of a corpse: the maidens, children, youths,
Our women, mothers, and th’entire household
Throng in at his lament: the little Benjamin,Standing at his feet, at the weeping of the mothers,
Weeps unaware at the loss of his trusty brother.[3]Van den Vondel’s play was a huge success and was shown numerous times at the
Amsterdam Schouwburg during the 1640s and 1650s,[4] and the play inspired some ofthe varied depictions of this story that Amsterdam artists made during theseyears.[5] The most theatrical of these paintings, the Leiden Collection work is an© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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almost verbatim portrayal of Reuben’s vision of the distraught Jacob throwing up hisarms in despair while his household gathers to support him in his misery, and it seems
probable that Van den Vondel’s play had a huge impact on its character. The many
associations between the painting and the play suggest that the painting dates from theearly 1650s, when the play was at the height of its popularity.
This large and impressive canvas was long thought to have been painted by
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), but this attribution has not been upheld for a numberof years. Most recently, Werner Sumowski has proposed that the painting was
executed in the mid- to late 1660s by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621–74), largelyon the basis of similarities that exist between it and Van den Eeckhout’s drawing of
the same subject in the Louvre (fig 3).[6] He concluded that the drawing, which hedates to the mid- to late 1660s, was a preliminary study for the painting.[7]The striking similarities between the drawing and the painting initially seem tosubstantiate Sumowski’s conclusion. In each work the distraught Jacob lies at thelower right with his arms spread wide as family members try to comfort him, while in
the immediate background a large architectural structure with an arched opening
frames a view into the distance. Nevertheless, sufficient differences exist between thetwo works—for example, in the angle of Jacob’s outthrust arms, and the number anddisposition of the figures populating the scene—to suggest that the drawing was anindependent creation only loosely connected to the painting.
A date in the mid- to late 1660s does not accord with the stylistic character of Van
den Eeckhout’s paintings at that stage of his career. In the 1660s, Van den Eeckhout
preferred quieter subjects, presenting Old Testament narratives in an understatedmanner rather than emphatically stressing the drama, as in this work. In his later
works he modeled his figures quite carefully and gave his scenes added pictorialinterest by articulating costume details, including the textures of their materials; suchcharacteristics are not evident in the rough modeling seen here.
The relationship between the drawing and this painting may be explained by Van den
Eeckhout’s approach to creating his series of drawings on the life of Joseph: helooked to earlier depictions of the life of Joseph for inspiration and freely adapted
them when creating his designs. For example, his drawing Joseph Telling His Dreams
from that series is freely based on Rembrandt’s 1638 etching of the same
subject.[8] The relationship of Van den Eeckhout’s drawing Jacob Shown Joseph’s
Bloody Coat to the Leiden Collection painting must be understood in a similar
fashion. This painting was probably the source of inspiration for Van den Eeckhout’s
drawing.
The question then remains whether Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat is consistent
with Van den Eeckhout’s style of painting from the 1650s. The story of Joseph© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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intrigued Van den Eeckhout throughout his career, and he even made a series ofdrawings of the life of Joseph in the early 1640s.[9] Among the many Old Testament
narratives he painted in the 1640s and 1650s, moreover, are a number that depict
episodes from the life of Joseph. He executed these paintings in a rough, expressive
manner that he must have learned when studying with Rembrandt in the late 1630s.
Generally, Van den Eeckhout preferred a rather dark, expansive setting for his
scenes, and he accented his figures with dramatically focused light effects and richcolors, much as in the present painting. Nevertheless, the manner in which the Leiden
Collection painting is executed differs fundamentally from these works. The blocky,
somewhat inelegant forms of the figures and the splotchy brushwork used to model
them, where the artist seems to have roughly dabbed his paint onto the canvas without
modulating the planes of color, differ from the more fluid brushwork thatcharacterizes Van den Eeckhout’s style of painting.
Unfortunately, an alternative attribution for this painting has yet to be found.
Although the dramatic focus of the composition, the chiaroscuro effects, and therough brushwork are all broadly related to works being produced by artists working
within Rembrandt’s orbit around mid-century—including Willem Drost (1633–59),
Carel Fabritius (1622–54), Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–78), Jan Lievens, Nicolaes
Maes (1634–93), Constantijn van Renesse (1626–80), and Jan Victors (1619–after
1676)—no precise comparable examples have thus far been identified. Until such
such works appear, it seems appropriate to label this expressive and emotionallycharged painting as “Circle of Rembrandt,” and to date it to the early 1650s.

- Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., 2017

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Endnotes
1. See Christian Tümpel in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter derniederländischen Kunst (Exh. cat. Münster, , Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History;
Amsterdam, Jewish Historical Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum) (Munich, 1994), 41–47.
2. “Daer de bloedige rock den Vader vertoont wort: gelijck wy in ’t suiten van dit werck, ten naesten by,
met woorden des schilders verwen, teickeningen, en hartstoghten, pooghden na te volgen.” Joost van
den Vondel, De werken van Vondel, ed. Leo Simons et al., 10 vols. (Amsterdam, 1929–37), 4: 74.
3. Joost van den Vondel, De werken van Vondel, ed. Leo Simons et al., 10 vols. (Amsterdam, 1929–37), 4:
74. The English translation is taken from Jeroen GIltaij, Guido Jansen, and Josua Bruyn, Een gloeiend
palet: Schilderijen van Rembrandt en zijn School, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (Rotterdam, 1988),
98, no. 32.
4. Jacob Adolf Worp, Geschiedenis van den Amsterdamschen schouwburg 1496–1772, ed. J. F. M. Sterck(Amsterdam, 1920), 95.
5. Aside from Jan Lievens and Jan Victors, Rembrandt van Rijn, in his drawing from the mid-1650s in theMuseum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, also depicted this subject. For Victors’s painting in the
Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw, see Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau
and Pfalz, 1983–94), 4: 2600, no. 1739. For Rembrandt’s drawing, see Jeroen GIltaij, Guido Jansen, andJosua Bruyn, Een gloeiend palet: Schilderijen van Rembrandt en zijn School, Museum Boijmans van
Beuningen (Rotterdam, 1988), 98–9.
6. Werner Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, ed. and trans. Walter L. Strauss, 10 vols. (NewYork, 1979–92), 3: 1422–23, no. 656; 1772, fig. 46. 9, no. 32.
7. Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–84), 2: 737, no.
451.
8. Werner Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, ed. and trans. Walter L. Strauss, 10 vols. (NewYork, 1979–92), 3:1416–17, no. 653, which reflects an element from Rembrandt’s etching Joseph
Telling His Dreams (B.37).
9. Werner Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, ed. and trans. Walter L. Strauss, 10 vols. (NewYork, 1979–92), 3:1504–14, nos. 697x–702x. Van den Eeckhout, however, never completed this cycle.

ProvenanceJean-Baptist-Pierre Lebrun (1748–1813) (his sale, Paris, 20 December 1773, no. 12 [1,160 francs to
Doujeu], as by Rembrandt).
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Sir Robert Strange (1721–92), London (his sale, Christie’s, London, 5–6 May 1775, no. 116 [for 65
gns.], as by Rembrandt).
Edward Smith-Stanley (1752–1834), 12th Earl of Derby, Lancashire Park, England, by 1818, and bydescent until 2000 (sale, Christie’s, London, 13 December 2000, no. 5, unsold as attributed to Gerbrandt
van den Eeckhout [with Simon Dickinson, New York, 2009]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2009.

Exhibition History
London, British Institution, 1818, 18, no. 139 [lent by the Earl of Derby, as by Rembrandt];
London, British Institution, 1855, 11, no. 95 [lent by the Earl of Derby, as by Rembrandt];
London, British Institution, 1867, 12, no. 127 [lent by the Earl of Derby, as by Rembrandt];
London, Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 1899, 31, no. 98 [lent by the Earl of Derby, as byRembrandt];
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, “Rembrandt,” 8 September–31 October 1898, no. 105 [lent by the Earlof Derby, as by Rembrandt];
London, Royal Academy (Burlington House), 1899, no. 98;
London, Grafton Galleries, 1911, 56, no. 58 [lent by the Earl of Derby, as by Rembrandt];
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 27 March–11 December 1979, permanent gallery exhibition [lent by the
Earl of Derby, as attributed to the Circle of Fabritius].
Philadelphia Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, October 2013–October 2015 [lentby the present owner].
Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam, “Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The
Leiden Collection,” 4 February–27 August 2023, no. 11 [lent by the present owner].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French
Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 7:7, no. 19.
Scharf, George. A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Collection at Knowsley Hall. London, 1875,
no. 494.
Vosmaer, Carel. Rembrandt, sa vie et ses oeuvre. 2nd edition. Paris, 1877, 519.
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Sweetser, Moses Foster. Rembrandt. Boston, 1879, 153.
Von Bode, Wilhelm. Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei. Braunschweig, 1883, 525, 586,
no. 202.
Dutuit, Eugène. Tableaux et dessins de Rembrandt. Paris, 1885, 44.
Michel, Émile. Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, and His Time. Translated by Florence Simmonds. 2 vols.
New York, 1894, 2:235. Originally published as Rembrandt, sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps. Paris, 1893.
Von Bode, Wilhelm, and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot. Rembrandt: beschreibendes Verzeichniss seiner
Gemälde mit den heliographischen Nachbildungen: Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner Kunst. 8 vols.
Paris, 1897–1906, 5: 80, no. 335; 7:211, no. 335.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. De Rembrandt Tentoonstelling te Amsterdam. Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Stedelijk Museum. Amsterdam, 1898, no. 105.
Bell, Malcom. Rembrandt van Rijn. London, 1901, 74, 127.
Valentiner, Wilhelm. Rembrandt, Des Meisters Gemälde. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1908, 303, 559, no. 303.
Bredius, Abraham. Kunstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der hollandischen Kunst des XVIten,
XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts. 8 vols. The Hague, 1915, 1:1742.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of
the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith. Edited and translated by Edward G. Hawke, 6:31, no. 15. 8 vols. London, 1907–28. Originally published as Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis
der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28.
Tatlock, Robert Rattray. “Two Pictures from the School of Rembrandt.” Burlington Magazine 39 (1921):
195–96.
Martin, Wilhelm. Rembrandt-Rätsel: Zu Valentiners neuem Rembrandt-Band. Berlin, 1921, 30.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Die holländische Kritik der jetzigen Rembrandt-Forschung und neust
weidergefundene Rembrandtbilder. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1922, 20.
Valentiner, Wilhelm R. Rembrandt, des Meisters Handzeichnungen. 2 vols. Stuttgart, Berlin, and Leipzig,
1924, 1: 101, 468, no. 102.
De Lint, Jan Gérard. Rembrandt. The Hague, 1930, 14, fig. 3.
Benesch, Otto. The Drawings of Rembrandt: A Critical and Chronological Catalogue. 6 vols. London,
1957, 5: 285, under no. 991, fig. 1204.
Sumowski, Werner. Bemerkungen zu Otto Beneschs Corpus der Rembrandt-Zeichnungen ll. Bad Pyrmont,
1961, 18, no. 991.
Schneider, Hans. Jan Lievens: Sein Leben und seine Werke. Haarlem, 1932. Reprinted with supplement
by Rudolf Otto Ekkart, Amsterdam, 1973, 170, no. 1.
Sumowski, Werner. Drawings of the Rembrandt School. 10 vols. Edited and translated by Walter L.
Strauss, 3: 1422, no. 656, 1772, fig. 46. New York, 1979–92.
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Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6 vols. Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94, 2: 737, no.
451, 814.
Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr., Christiaan Vogelaar, and Caroline van Cauwenberge. Rembrandt and His
Contemporaries: History Paintings from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Hermitage
Amsterdam. Zwolle, 2023, 58–61, no. 11. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

Versions
Related Drawings
1. Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Jacob Receiving Joseph’s Blood-Stained Tunic, ca. 1665, pen and brown ink
and gray washes, 205 x 162 mm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 22.906.

2. Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob Is Shown Joseph’s Blood-stained Coat, c. 1655, pen and bistre, in some parts
covered with white body-color, 133 x 179 mm, Museum Boymans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (formerly
F. Koenigs Collection, Rotterdam).

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of coarse, plain-weave fabric, has been lined. The lower tacking margin has been
turned out and the remaining tacking margins have been removed. There is broad cusping along the upperand lower edges and slight cusping along the left and right edges. A narrow fabric addition with a horizontal
seam has been added to the lower edge. The composite support has been lined and the original composition,
which ends below the heel and knee of the kneeling male figure, has been extended and the entire foot has
been completed on the lower fabric addition. There are three paper labels but no wax collection seals, stencils
or import stamps along the lining or stretcher.
The ground, which appears to be red, has been evenly applied. The paint has been applied in a loose, sketchy
manner (different in handling and with none of the fine details and brushwork present in GE-100). Sets ofsweeping, arched, parallel scratches along the upper right quadrant of the composition, located above,
through, and to the left of the architectural arch as well as through the figures, suggest this area of thecomposition has been scraped and reworked.[1]No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Dark underdrawnlines are visible as pentimenti through the dog in the lower right corner’s white fur. A more complete
underdrawing may be visible in wavelengths that penetrate further into the infrared region. Further
investigation is required.
The painting is unsigned and undated.

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The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since acquisition in 2009 and remains in a good stateof preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. There is no X-radiograph of this painting which could provide further information.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection