Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham
Caspar Netscher(Prague or Heidelberg ca. 1639 – 1684 The
Hague)

1673
oil on canvas
59.5 x 50.5 cm
signed and dated in light paint along upperedge, right of center: “CNetfcher.
fecit 1673.”
CN-106© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Wieseman, Marjorie E. “Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd
ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/sarahleading-hagar-to-abraham/ (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 narrative
occurs.

After many years of marriage, the biblical patriarch Abraham and his wife,
Sarah, were unable to conceive a child.

[1]

Comparative Figures

In the hope that they might yet

beget an heir, Sarah suggested that Abraham try to have a child with her
beautiful, young Egyptian maid Hagar. Hagar became pregnant and gavebirth to a son, Ishmael, when Abraham was eighty-six years old. When,several years later, Sarah eventually became pregnant and had a son, Isaac,household relations soured. Ishmael began to tease his younger half-brother,leading Sarah to insist that Abraham banish Hagar and Ishmael from thefamily home; the latter were forced to wander in the desert.
Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham is one of only two biblical subjects painted
by Caspar Netscher (the other is Bathsheba, dated 1667).[2] The subject is
not only an unusual choice for Netscher, but is generally quite rare inseventeenth-century Dutch art.[3] By contrast, other episodes from the Old

Fig 1. Caspar Netscher, MusicalCompany, 1665, oil on panel, 44 x
36 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague,
inv. 125

Testament story of Hagar were fairly common. The Dismissal of Hagar, when
Abraham is later forced to expel the Egyptian concubine and his first-born
son, was treated on numerous occasions by Pieter Lastman (1583–1633)
and his contemporaries, by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), and by artists of
the Rembrandt school.[4] The appeal of that particular episode lay largely inthe complex web of emotions it presented for both artist and audience:
Abraham rendered indecisive by conflicting loyalties—faithful to his wife Sarah
yet feeling compassion for Hagar and Ishmael; and Hagar, sorrowful, bereft,
and fearful of what the future might hold for herself and her young son. In its
contrasting of the comforts of the home with the harsh uncertainties of the© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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desert wilderness, the story served a moralizing purpose as well, reinforcing
the primacy of the nuclear family and the importance of maintaining domesticorder.[5]For artists, however, depicting the moment when the aged Sarah introduces
her maidservant to her husband with the proposal that he impregnate her inorder to fulfill God’s will, offered quite a different set of interpretive
possibilities. Rather than exploring wrenching emotions and complex familial
relationships, artists appear to have been attracted primarily to the story’ssalacious aspects; many used it as an opportunity to depict a partially clad ornude young woman in an acceptable historical context. The sixteenthcentury German printmakers Hans Sebald Beham (1500–50) and Georg
Pencz (1500–50) made engravings of the subject, which may in turn haveinfluenced Crispijn de Passe the Elder’s engraved illustration for the 1616
edition of the Liber Genesis, a widely circulated book of biblical prints. Not
until the late 1630s did the subject appear in paintings: three works by the
Caravaggesque painter Matthias Stom (ca. 1600–after 1652) highlight thestark contrast between youth and old age, and, with Sarah cast as the aged
procuress, Abraham as the client, and Hagar as the compliant prostitute,present a Biblical take on the perennially popular Dutch genre theme of
mercenary love.[6]Netscher’s Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham appears to be the first
rendering of the subject in Dutch art for more than two decades, and takes
the story in a rather different direction. Like Stom, Netscher’s depiction is
influenced by contemporary genre paintings, but rather than looking to bold
Caravaggesque scenes of prostitutes, procuresses and their lusty clients,
Netscher’s painting fits comfortably in the rarified world of his own elegantly
appointed portraits and domestic interiors. Compare, for example, the highly
decorative effect of the lush Portrait of Caspar Ingels and Maria Christina
Bartolotti van den Heuvel, 1672, or a genteel genre scene such as MusicalCompany of 1665 (fig 1).[7]Traces of the forbidden sensuality and questionable morality thatcharacterize Stom’s dramatic depictions of Sarah, Hagar and Abraham still
linger in Netscher’s painting, though they are far more discreetly packaged.
Perhaps taking his cue from the Bible, which states that Abraham “was veryrich in cattle, in silver, and in gold” (Genesis 13:2), Netscher envelops thefigures in luxury: shimmering bed curtains, a massive gold ewer and shallowbasin, plush carpets on the table and floor, and fine silk and velvet garments
for the figures themselves. Sarah is no longer a haggard crone with clear© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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links to the stereotypical image of the procuress, but a dignified and mature
woman, an image more in keeping with her status as the mother of theJewish nation. Hagar, posed frontally and gazing directly at the viewer,
appears oddly disconnected from the transaction that soon dramaticallyalters her life. Indeed, her attention seems focused entirely on the viewer.
Hagar’s utter passivity and coy outward gaze are expressly designed to
entice the viewer, and her half-hearted attempts to preserve her modesty bycovering her breasts and grabbing at her white satin gown to prevent it fromsliding completely to the floor in fact only draw attention to the voluptuous
body beneath. A servant peers from behind the canopied bed curtains atright, her eager spying echoing our own voyeuristic anticipation. The
emphasis of Netscher’s painting is on lush visual delights and titillating
sensuality; emotions are politely held in check, and the conversation
between Sarah and Abraham seems simple and pragmatic, with little evident
concern for future repercussions.
The exceptional state of preservation of Sarah Leading Hagar to Abrahamallows us to fully appreciate Netscher’s delicate touch and skillful applicationof paint. His ability to distinguish the varied tactile surfaces within this richly
appointed interior enhances the work’s overall sensuality. Although it is notknown for whom Netscher painted Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, thiswork was later acquired by Philippe II, duc d’Orléans (1674–1723), Palais
Royal, Paris, and stayed in that family’s collection until the late eighteenth
century.

- Marjorie E. Wieseman, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes

1. The story of Hagar is recounted in Genesis 16 and Genesis 21.
2. Oil on panel, 42 x 36 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, inv. 1400.
Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting(Doornspijk, 2002), no. 61.
3. Christine Petra Sellin, Fractured Families and Rebel Maidservants: The Biblical Hagar in
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Literature (New York, 2006), 69 and ff., identifies only
11 examples.
4. Richard Hamann, “Hagars abscheid bei Rembrandt und im Rembrandt-Kreise,” Marburger
Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 8–9 (1936): 471–578; and Christine Petra Sellin, Fractured
Families and Rebel Maidservants: The Biblical Hagar in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art andLiterature (New York, 2006), 106–32.
5. Christine Petra Sellin, Fractured Families and Rebel Maidservants: The Biblical Hagar in
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Literature (New York, 2006), 119–24.
6. Matthias Stom, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, 1640s, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 100 cm,
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Göteborg, inv. GKM 1496. See Christine Petra Sellin, Fractured
Families and Rebel Maidservants: The Biblical Hagar in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art andLiterature (New York, 2006), 76–77.
7. Marjorie E. Wieseman, Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting(Doornspijk, 2002), nos. 118 and 52 respectively.

ProvenancePhilippe II, duc d’Orléans (1674–1723), Palais Royal, Paris; by descent to his son, Louis, ducd’Orléans (1703–52), Paris (sale, Paris, 9 June 1727, unsold [as “Une jeune Femme & un
Viellard”]); by descent to his son, Louis Philippe, duc d’Orléans (1725–85), Paris; by descentto his son, Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d’Orléans (1747–93), Paris [Thomas Moore Slade,London, 1792, purchased in association with the 7th Baron Kinnaird (1754–1805), W.
Morland and Thomas Hammersley (Orléans sale, London, April 1793, no. 86)].
Col. Le Blanc, London (sale, Christie’s, London, 26–27 May 1820, no. 97, unsold; sale,
Christie’s, London, 16 June 1820, no. 122 [for £36.15 to Wilkins]).
William Wilkins (1778–1839), London (his sale, Christie’s, London, 22 May 1830, no. 4 [for£157.10 to Bone for Neeld]).
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Joseph Neeld (1789–1856), Grittleton House, Wiltshire, by 1830; by descent to his brother,
Sir John Neeld, 1st bt. (1805–91), Grittleton House; by descent to his son, Sir Algernon
William Neeld, 2nd bt. (1846–1900), Grittleton House; by descent to his brother, Sir Audley
Dallas Neeld, 3rd bt. (1849–1941), Grittleton House; to Joseph Neeld’s descendant via an
illegitimate daughter, Lionel William [Inigo-Jones] Neeld [d. 1956], Grittleton House (Neeld
sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 13 July 1945, no. 76 [for £189 to Betts]).
[Eugene Slatter Gallery, London, 1950].
D. Molyneux-Cohan (sale, Sotheby’s, London, 2 December 1964, no. 93).
[H. Shickman Gallery, New York, by 1967 to Sardinsky].
Sol Sardinsky, Philadelphia, 1967–2005 [Noortman Master Paintings, 2005].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2005.

Exhibition History
London, Royal Academy, “The Orléans Gallery Now Exhibiting at the Great Rooms,”
April–June 1793, no. 86.
London, British Institution, “Catalogue of Pictures by Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, and English
Masters with which the Proprietors Have Favoured This Institution,” June 1829, no. 183 [lentby William Wilkins].
London, Eugene Slatter, “1950 Exhibition of Dutch and Flemish Masters,” 10 May–8 July
1950, no 22 [lent by Eugene Slatter].
New York, H. Shickman Gallery, “Exhibition of Dutch Seventeenth-Century Paintings,”
October 1967, no. 12 [lent by H. Shickman].
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection, October
2002–August 2005 [lent by Sol Sardinsky].
Maastricht, European Fine Arts Fair, March 2005 [exhibited by Noortman Master Paintings].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection,
February–September 2014 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22
February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden
Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection,” 23 September 2017–25 February 2018 [lentby the present owner].
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Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 28 March 2018–22 July 2018 [lent by the present
owner].
St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection,” 5 September 2018–13 January 2019 [lent by thepresent owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age.
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May
2019 [lent by the present owner].

References
DuBois de Saint-Gelais, Louis François. Description des Tableaux du Palais Royal avec la vie
des peintres à la tête de leurs ouvrages. Geneva, 1727, 163. (described erroneously as
having a landscape background)
Dezalliers d’Argenville, Antoine-Joseph. Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres. 3 vols.
Paris, 1745–52, 3:57.
Descamps, Jean Baptiste La vie des peintres flamands, allemands et hollandois: avec desportraits gravés en taille-douce, une indication de leurs principaux ouvrages & des réflexions
sur leurs différentes manières. 4 vols. Paris, 1753–64, 3:82.
Fontenai, Louis-Abel de Bonafous, Abbé de. Galerie du Palais Royal gravée d’après les
tableaux des différentes Écoles qui la composent, avec un abrégé de la vie des peintres. 3
vols. Paris, 1786–1808, 3. (under “Gaspard Netscher.”)
Le Brun, Jean-Baptiste-Pierre. Galerie des Peintres flamandes, hollandaise et allemands. 3
vols. Paris and Amsterdam, 1792–95, 2:85. (as by Constantijn Netscher.)Wilson, M. The Orléans Gallery Now Exhibiting at the Great Rooms. Exh. cat. London, Royal
Academy. London, 1793, 16, no. 86.
Buchanan, William. Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of
Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution. 2 vols. London,
1824, 1:207.
British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts. Catalogue of Pictures by Spanish, Flemish,
Dutch, and English Masters with which the Proprietors Have Favoured This Institution. Exh.
cat. London, British Institution. London, 1829, no. 183.
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish andFrench Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, 4:154–55, no. 32.
Nieuwenhuys, Christianus Johannes. A Review of the Lives and Works of Some of the Most
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Eminent Painters with Remarks on the Opinions and Statements of Former Writers. London,
1834, 168–69. (as by Constantijn Netscher)
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Verzeichnis der Gemälde Sammlung des königlichen Museum zu
Berlin. Berlin, 1837–39, 1:339.
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief
Collections of Painting, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss., &c. &c. 3 vols. London,
1854–57, 2:247, no. 3.
Stryienski, Casimir. La galerie du re?gent, Philippe, duc d’ Orle?ans. Paris, 1913, 185, no.
430.
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 translatedby Edward G. Hawke, 8 vols. London, 1907–28, 5:151, no. 1. Originally published as
Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten holländischen
Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts. 10 vols. Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
1950 Exhibition of Dutch and Flemish Masters. Sales cat. London, Eugene Slatter. London,
1950, no. 22.
H. Shickman Gallery. Exhibition of Dutch Seventeenth Century Paintings. Sales cat. New
York, H. Shickman Gallery. New York, 1967, no. 12.
Atwater, Vivian Lee. Catalogue and Analysis of Eighteenth-Century French Prints After
Netherlandish Baroque Paintings. 2 vols. London, 1988, 2:933, no. 897.
Ydema, Onno. Carpets and Their Datings in Netherlandish Paintings, 1540–1700. Zutphen,
1991, 168, no. 568.
Wieseman, Marjorie E. Caspar Netscher and Late Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting.
Doornspijk, 2002, 40 n. 17; 80; 254–55, no. 122.
Sellin, Christine Petra. Fractured Families and Rebel Maidservants: The Biblical Hagar in
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Literature. New York, 2006, 81–83, fig. 11 and coverillus.
Surh, Dominique. “Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham.” In Masterpieces of The Leiden
Collection: The Age of Rembrandt. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Dominique Surh, 37–8, no. 8.
Exh. cat. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2017.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham.” In Rembrandt and His Time:
Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 154; 188, no. 67.
Translated by Li Ying. Exh. cat. Beijing, National Museum of China. Beijing, 2017.
Long Museum, West Bund. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hals in the Dutch Golden Age:
Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection. Exh. cat. Shanghai, Long Museum, West Bund.
Shanghai, 2017, 122–23.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham.” In The Age of Rembrandt and© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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Vermeer: Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection. Edited by Polina Lyubimova, 154–55;
240–41, no. 44. Translated by Daria Babich and Daria Kuzina. Exh. cat. Moscow, The
Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts; St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum. Moscow,
2018.
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “The Leiden Collection and the Dutch Golden Age.” In Rembrandt,
Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the
Musée du Louvre. Edited by Blaise Ducos and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 30. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019. [Exhibition catalogue also published in French andArabic.]Ducos, Blaise, and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, eds. Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden
Age. Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre. Exh. cat. Abu
Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi. London, 2019, 146, no. 68. [Exhibition catalogue also published in
French and Arabic.]

Versions
Engraved

1. Louis-Michel Halbou, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, 1794, engraving and drypoint, 194 x
161 mm; in Abbé de Fontenai, Galerie du Palais Royal gravée d’après les tableaux desdifférentes ?coles qui la composent, avec un abrégé de la vie des peintres (Paris,
1786–1808), 3: under “Gaspard Netscher.”Versions and Copies

1. After Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, canvas, 60 x 50 cm, formerly Kingof Wurtemburg, sale, Residenzschloss, Stuttgart, 27–29 November 1919, no. 95 (as by Eglon
van der Neer, “Der orientalische Sklavenhändler mit Kupplerin”).

2. After Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, support unknown, 23 x 18 pouces,formerly Berger, sale, Paris, 20 October 1817, no. 58.

3. School of Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, support and dimensions
unknown, formerly De Vauglas, Samson et al., sale, Paris, 28–30 September 1818, no. 99.

4. After Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, support unknown, 76.2 x 66 cm,
formerly Field Marshal Andoche Junot, Duke of Abrantes; his sale, Christie’s, London, 7 July
1817, no. 26; his sale, Christie’s, London, 4 May 1818, no. 49; sale LNV PA 24 12 1822 no16.

5. After Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, canvas, 20 x 18 pouces, formerly© 2020 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham
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Comte de Walterstorff, sale, Paris, 27–28 March 1821, no. 89.

6. After Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, canvas, 55.9 x 40.6 cm, sale,
Cologne, 28 June 1890, no. 62.

7. Attributed to Constantijn Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, canvas, dimensions
unknown, formerly P. J. Herrenschwand Collection, sale, Paris, 24 January 1810, no. 101.

8. After Caspar Netscher, Sarah Leading Hagar to Abraham, support and dimensions unknown,
formerly Dufresne, sale, Destouches, Paris, 26 March 1810, no. 123.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of fine-weight, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins removed has
been lined and mounted to a stretcher over a rigid paperboard. Cusping along the upper, left andlower edges indicates the support’s original dimensions have not been significantly altered, otherthan perhaps along the right edge. There is a paper label and a pencil inscription but no wax
collection seals, stencils or import stamps along the paperboard or stretcher reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by opaque layers of smoothly
applied paint blended wet-into-wet with slightly raised brushwork along the gold pitcher and theunderplate’s highlights. Delicate dabs of paint create the illusion of the pile of the carpet draped
over the table.
An underdrawing is visible along Abraham’s neck, beard, and drapery in infrared images
captured at 780–1000 nanometers, and compositional changes evident in the X-radiographinclude shifts in the position of Abraham’s head and gaze.
The painting is signed and dated in light paint along the upper edge, just right of center.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2006 and remains in an excellent state ofpreservation.[1]Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The painting was examined on-site without a stereomicroscope. Magnification provided by a
5x Optivisor.

© 2020 The Leiden Collection