Finding of Moses

ca. 1632–34

Pieter de Grebber(Haarlem ca. 1603 – 1652/53 Haarlem)

oil on panel
86.2 x 65.2 cm
PG-100© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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How To Cite
DeWitt, Lloyd. "Finding of Moses." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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On the reedy bank of the Nile River, a young woman tenderly presents theComparative Figures

infant Moses to the richly dressed daughter of Pharaoh who reaches
forward to accept him in her arms. This biblical scene, described inExodus 2:1–10, recounts how the abandoned child was discovered in awaterproof basket floating on the river. His Hebrew mother had
desperately relinquished him to this fate to spare him an even worse end
at the hands of the Egyptians, who were carrying out a murderous purge ofHebrew infant boys. The Pharaoh had ordered this massacre out of fear of
the potential threat posed by the growing nation of the Israelites, who werethen living in slavery in Egypt. He decreed: “Every son who is born you areto cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive” (Exodus
1:22). Though Pharaoh’s daughter recognized that the abandoned baby
was Hebrew, she deliberately flouted her father’s wishes and had mercy
on the child, adopting him as her own. She gave him the name Moses,

Fig 1. Pieter de Grebber, Moses
Striking the Rock, 1630, oil oncanvas, 165 x 132 cm, Muséedes Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing,
876.2.1

because she “drew him from the water” (Exodus 2:10).
This heartwarming and dramatic narrative was of great interest toChristians for many reasons, not least because it was understood as anOld Testament prefiguration of the New Testament story of the Flight into
Egypt, which recounts the escape of Jesus from a similar massacre ofHebrew infant boys in Bethlehem after King Herod decreed that all themale children in that town should be killed (Matthew 2:13–15). The story ofMoses, who would grow up to lead the Israelites out of bondage when they
crossed the Red Sea to the Promised Land of Canaan, resonated withseventeenth-century Dutch people. The United Provinces had recently

Fig 2. Studio of Rembrandt vanRijn, The Finding of Moses, ca.
1635–40, oil on canvas, 48.6 x
60.2 cm, John G. Johnson
Collection, Philadelphia Museumof Art, Cat. 474

gained their own liberation from Spanish oppression under the leadershipof William the Silent, who was often allegorically associated with Moses.
Like Moses, William died before the end of the struggle for liberation, andtherefore he was never able to partake of this hard-won freedom.[1]Pieter de Grebber has cast the key characters in strong, diffused sunlight,and has placed them against a dark background. Most of them are seen in
profile and situated along a diagonal that leads from the reeds at thewater’s edge at lower right to the Pharaoh’s daughter, who sits on theFig 3. Pieter de Grebber, The
Finding of Moses, 1634, oil oncanvas, 170 x 229 cm,Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister,
Dresdenbank at the left. This compositional arrangement is consistent with De
Grebber’s works of the early 1630s, such as Raising of Lazarus fromabout 1632 (Galleria Sabauda, Turin) and Moses Striking the Rock from1630 (fig 1).[2]© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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The narrative clarity of Finding of Moses stands in stark contrast to theapproach taken by a member of Rembrandt van Rijn’s (1606–69)
workshop in a piece executed around this time (fig 2). In this latter
painting, the only surviving depiction of the story from Rembrandt’sworkshop, nude female bathers peer with great curiosity into Moses’sbasket as it floats in the Nile.[3] The artist emphasizes the surprise of theirdiscovery through their varied expressions and emphatic gestures. For allof its visual appeal, however, that image lacks the gravitas thatcharacterizes De Grebber’s interpretations of the story, which focus on thesolemn moment when the infant is delivered into the arms of Pharoah’s
daughter. This act mirrors the ascent of Moses from certain death to hishonored position at the Egyptian court.
The Leiden Collection painting may be an unfinished work. In comparison
to De Grebber’s other paintings from this period, the figures are thinly
painted, and much of the background is indistinct and unresolved. The
rendering of the figures is also less detailed than in other works of the early
1630s, such as Moses Striking the Rock (fig 1). In the latter work De
Grebber labored assiduously to achieve a refined finish, rendering theplasticity of flesh in a manner that recalls the tactile qualities of paintingsby his master Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617).
It is likely that De Grebber painted Finding of Moses for a commission thathe, for some reason or other, did not complete. In 1634 he excuted alarger, and very different, version (fig 3), now in Dresden, with a more
centralized, symmetrical composition. Peter Sutton has suggested that theDresden painting’s arrangement was modeled on the traditional Italian
Renaissance Sacra Conversazione, in which the enthroned Madonna andChild are surrounded by saints.[4] Although the Leiden Collection painting
is loosely brushed and seemingly unfinished, it cannot be a preliminary
study for the Dresden version. Not only does the Dresden painting have ahorizontal format rather than a vertical one, its composition is reversed.
Another difference is that the Pharaoh’s daughter in the latter work is
accompanied by European attendants instead of African ones. The
compositional differences between these two works are revealing, andpoint to the evolution of De Grebber’s style from frieze-like and diagonalcompositions in the early 1630s to grander, more hieratic and symmetricalarrangements of figures in the mid-1630s.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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De Grebber, who was devoutly Catholic and painted many religious
images throughout his career, trained in Haarlem with Goltzius soon afterthat master had begun to paint in a classicizing style. De Grebber followed
this approach and looked for inspiration to the art of classical antiquity andthe High Renaissance. He valued ideal forms and standards of beauty,
and sought to articulate in word and image the underlying rules andprinciples of art.[5]The narrative clarity, lavish modeling and beautiful light of De Grebber’spaintings caught the attention of important patrons such as Constantijn
Huygens (1596–1687), who helped De Grebber earn a number ofimportant commissions, including Apotheosis of Frederik Hendrik for
Amalia van Solms in the Oranjezaal in the Huis ten Bos, which hecompleted in 1649. He painted these commissions according to rules hearticulated in a broadsheet published in 1648 entitled: “Rules, which needto be observed and followed by a good draftsman and painter.”[6] A
number of these principles are evident in The Finding of Moses, including
rule number three, which states: “The main element of the story must be
foregrounded in the most attractive part of the work.” In the Leiden
Collection painting De Grebber placed the presentation of the child in thecenter foreground, and bathed that area in glowing light. Rule seven reads:“Care must be taken to ensure that the figures do not merely stand there,
isolated from one another, but they must be connected with one another sothat they come to life through their interaction.” In Finding of Moses eachof the characters are connected to one another through their movements,glances, and gestures.[7]The two versions of the Finding of Moses offer two very different, butequally effective solutions to the problem of telling this biblical story withgrace and lucidity—the first more frieze-like, the second more hieratic. De
Grebber’s achievements have a clarity and order that epitomizes theclassical tradition in Dutch art in the early decades of the Golden Age.
-Lloyd DeWitt© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Finding of Moses
Page 6 of 8Endnotes
1. Simon Schama, The Embarassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in theGolden Age (New York, 1987), 109–20, Peter C. Sutton, “Finding of Moses,” in Dutch
Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Rotterdam,Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut)(Rotterdam, 1999), 128–30.
2. Peter C. Sutton, correspondence August 30, 1999, on file at the Leiden Collection. Pieter deGrebber, Raising of Lazarus, see Herwig Guratzsch, Die Auferweckung des Lazarus in derniederländischen Kunst von 1400 bis 1700: Ikonographie und Ikonologie , 2 vols. (Kortrijk,1980), 2: no. 260, plate 122. Albert Blankert et al., eds.,Dutch Classicism in SeventeenthCentury Painting (Exh. cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; Frankfurt amMain, Städelsches Kunstinstitut) (Rotterdam, 1999), no. 15, 125.
3. Ernst van de Wetering et al., Rembrandt: Quest of a Genius (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,Rembrandt House Museum, 2006) (Amsterdam, 2006), 32, fig. 22.
4. Peter Sutton, “Rembrandt and Peter de Grebber,” in Shop Talk: Studies in Honor ofSeymour Slive, ed. Cynthia P. Schneider, William W. Robinson, Alice I. Davies (Cambridge,1995), 241. Peter Sutton, correspondence, 30 August 1999, on file at The Leiden Collection,
also detected the influence of Rembrandt in the use of strong chiaroscuro to highlight thecentral figures in both paintings.
5. Albert Blankert et. al., eds., Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting (Exh. cat.
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen; Frankfurt am Main, StädelschesKunstinstitut) (Rotterdam, 1999), 15, 21.
6. Albert Blankert et. al., eds., Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting (Exh. cat.
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen; Frankfurt am Main, StädelschesKunstinstitut) (Rotterdam, 1999), 15, 21.
7. De Grebber published his broadsheet, “Regulen: Welcke by een goet Schilder en Teykenaer
geobserveert en achtervolght moeten warden,” in 1648. See Albert Blankert et al., eds.,
Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting (Exh. cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans
van Beuningen; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut) (Rotterdam, 1999), i, 26; andP. J. J. van Thiel, “De Grebbers regels van de kunst,” Oud Holland 80 (1965): 126–31.
8. Albert Blankert et al., eds., Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting (Exh. cat.
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches
Kunstinstitut) (Rotterdam, 1999), i.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Provenance
Gilbert de Poulton Nicholson, Berlin (his sale, Lepke, Berlin, 8 April 1924, no. 66).
Julio Alejandro da Cunha, Greenville, DE, by 1993 [Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London,2005].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

References
Sutton, Peter C. “Finding of Moses.” In Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-CenturyPainting.

Edited by Albert Blankert et al. Exh. cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans vanBeuningen; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut. Rotterdam, 1999, 130, under no.
16, fig. 16a.
Sutton, Peter C. “Rembrandt and Peter de Grebber.” In Shop Talk Studies in Honor ofSeymour Slive. Edited by Cynthia P. Schneider, William W. Robinson, and Alice I. Davies.
Cambridge, 1995, 241–44.

Technical Summary
The support is a rectangular composite panel comprising three vertically grained oak planks: awide central plank flanked by two similarly sized narrower planks.[1] Diagonal rasp marks along
the entire reverse as well as three exposed dowel channels perpendicular to the join between
planks 1 and 2 and two dowel channels perpendicular to the join between planks 2 and 3
indicate the location of previous panel cleats and that the panel was thinned prior to being
cradled. There are no bevels, wax seals, stencils, labels, or panel maker’s marks.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by paint applied thinly andsmoothly, wet into wet, with low brushmarks along the folds of the Pharaoh’s daughter’s whitedrapery, the blue drapery with gold fringe the daughter is seated on, and the green foliage along
the lower right corner. The ground is allowed to show through along the foreground and along thediagonally oriented green foliage on the mountainside, which has been stippled in. The blue-graypaint above the figures has been applied more opaquely, and a halo of ground has been allowed
to remain exposed surrounding the figures.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers,
although the eyes of the woman presenting Moses and the mouth of the woman to her left may
have been underdrawn in a dark medium. Further investigation with an InGaAs camera, which© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Finding of Moses
Page 8 of 8reaches further into the infrared spectrum, may provide additional information. The images and Xradiograph reveal compositional changes to the group of figures in the center of the composition.
The gaze and profile of the woman presenting Moses to Pharaoh’s daughter have been shifted,
and the woman to her left, depicted in shadow, appears to have been added later in the paintstage.
The painting is unsigned and undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2005 and remains in good state of preservation,although the left panel join is slightly out of plane and remains visible in raking light.[2]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination only. Viewed from thefront: plank 1 is approximately 20 cm wide; plank 2, approximately 28 cm wide; and plank 3,
approximately 18 cm wide. Worm holes are present along plank 1 only.
2. The painting was examined on-site without a stereomicroscope. Magnification provided
by 5X Optivisor.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection