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 upper edge,
right of center: “A(??)lder f.”
AG-103

How to cite
Manuth, Volker. “Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah” (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.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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

Comparative Figures

the early 1660s, at a time when his master created some of his greatest paintings,
among them the Staalmeesters (The Sampling Officials of the 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 fromthe Staalmeesters how to use a table with a heavy orange-red tablecloth as acompositional 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,ochre, red, and orange colors. The importance of Rembrandt’s inspiration isFig 1. Rembrandt van Rijn,
Staalmeesters (The Sampling Officialsof the Amsterdam Draper’s Guild),
1662, oil on canvas, 191.5cm × 279
cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SKC-6

particularly evident in this evocative painting, Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah,
which De Gelder’s executed some thirty years after his apprenticeship with thatmaster.
Like Rembrandt, De Gelder based a number of his biblical scenes on books from the
Apocrypha, particularly the story of the pious, blind, and impoverished
Tobit.[1] Although the Book of Tobit was not accepted by the Protestants as part ofthe biblical canon, it was included at the very end of the authorized translation of the
Bible of the Dutch Reformed Church, the so-called Statenvertaling of 1637. In the
preface to the Bible, the Dutch theologians responsible for the translation specificallyprohibited the reading of the Apocrypha during the divine service. Nevertheless, theBook of Tobit was recommended for its moralistic overtones and gained popularity

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

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 of Ecbatana in Media.[2] In
Ecbatana, Tobias and his traveling companion who, unbeknownst to him, was theArchangel Raphael, met with one of Tobit’s kinsmen, Raguel, and his wife, Edina.
The couple’s daughter Sarah was both beautiful and wise, and Tobias fell in love withher. Sarah, however, was beset by a demon, who had already killed each of her sevenbridegrooms when they entered the bridal chamber. Acting on the advice of Raphael,
who also promised his help to conquer the demon, Tobias obtained Raguel’s
permission to marry Sarah.[3] De Gelder’s painting focuses on the moment that
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 side of the table, gazesat his wife and reacts to her words with an expressive gesture.[5]The words to which Raguel reacts are recorded in chapter ten, verse thirteen of thebook of Tobit, where Edna says: “I commit my daughter unto thee as a special trust;
do not bring her pain.”[6] The richly decorated gloves of young Tobias allude to the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah
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important role of wedding gloves as a marriage pledge in seventeenth-century
wedding ceremonies.[7] De Gelder likely based the physiognomies on live models.
Whether he did this with the intention of making his figures more convincing or tosatisfy the wish of a patron who might have ordered a portrait historié is not known.
The identification of De Gelder’s painting with this text from the Book of Tobit has
been questioned in the past because of the young ages of Tobias and Sarah.[8] By theend 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 anddrawings 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 asa 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 the wedding ofTobias and Sarah, has in the past been wrongly associated with this painting. In thattext it is written, “then he [Raguel] called his daughter Sarah, and she came to herfather, and he took her by the hand, and gave her to be wife to Tobias, saying,
Behold, take her after the law of Moses, and lead her away to thy father. And heblessed them.” Thereafter, a marriage contract was drawn and signed. De Gelder did
depict this subject in a painting now in Brighton.[11] In the Brighton work he showed
the drafting and scrutinizing of the marriage contract following, it seems, the exampleof 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 contract of Tobias
and Sarah, the gesture of Raguel could hardly be interpreted as a blessing. Instead,
Raguel’s wife, Edna, who holds the hands of the young couple with warmth andaffection, is the central figure, as would be appropriate 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 factthat one of the two female figures is an old woman.[13] She resembles Anna, themother of Tobias, as Rembrandt and his circle traditionally portrayed her. Werner
Sumowski correctly identified the subject 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 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’ssquare neckline, open gown tied at the waist, and the long streamers that attach theback of her headdress, are consistent with female fashions of the 1690s. Althoughvery few paintings by De Gelder from the 1690s can be reliably dated, in comparison© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah
Page 4 of 9with paintings from the 1680s it seems that his brushwork, especially in the detailed
characterization of the lavishly decorated costumes, became much finer and moredetailed, an effect particularly seen in his rendering of transparent veils. As with
Sarah’s veil, 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, multicoloredturbans, are dressed in a more Orientalizing fashion than Sarah and Edna. De Gelder’sknowledge of genuine Oriental dress can be detected in Tobias’s yellow kaftan andheron-feather aigrette. A portrait medallion with the image of a head in profile,similar to the one hanging from Tobias’s neck, is also featured in De Gelder’spainting Judah’s Humble Supplication to Joseph, ca. 1685.[17]Arnold Houbraken, who was also from Dordrecht and well acquainted with De
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 andbayonets, armor, and so on, including shoes and clogs; and the attic and walls of his
studio are hung with draperies and embroidered cloths and veils, some intact, others
torn. . . . From this rich stock 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 fluwel
taefelkleed” (one red velvet tablecloth) documented in the inventory of the artist’s
estate in 1727.[19]- Volker Manuth, 2017

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Endnotes
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 his kinsman 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 old father’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 vonMoltke, Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727 [Doornspijk, 1994], 80–81, no. 43). Sumowski, whodisagreed with the identification of the scene as a story from the Old Testament, assumed it to be a
“subject of antiquity 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, WallrafRichartz-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 of the Dutch Bible produced in
1637—the so-called Statenvertaling—which explains the inclusion of this scene and its subsequent
treatment by Arent de Gelder. On this subject, see Christian Tümpel et al., Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das
Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst (Exh. cat. Münster, Westfälisches
Landesmuseum; Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum) (Zwolle, 1994),
296, no. 63, and Volker Manuth, “‘De voorwerpen van zyn Historische vertooningen zyn meest
Bybelstof…’: De bijbelse historiestukken van Arent de Gelder; Keuze van onderwerpen en iconografie,”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), 51–69, esp.
61–63.
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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 of ca. 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 herberge gaen.” 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 de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727(Doornspijk, 1994), 81, no. 44 (ill.)
12. The three versions (excluding several variants and copies) are: (1) M. H. de Young Memorial Museum,
San Francisco; (2) Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig; and (3) unknown private collection.
See Baruch D. Kirschenbaum, The Religious and Historical Paintings of Jan 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 welsterven; 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. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94), 5: no.
2090a, and 2: no. 735.
18. “Maar onze de Gelder, heeft niet minder dan hy [Rembrandt] een voddekraam van allerhande 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 engestikte zyde bewindselen en sluijers, sommige geheel, andere gescheurt…Uit dezen ryken voorraad
haalt hy de toerustinge zyner beelden.” 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.
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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 and Sons, Ltd.,
London, 1989; Douwes Fine Art, Amsterdam, 1994; Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, 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 Laatste Leerling.” 10
October 1998–17 January 1999; Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, 17 January–19 May 1999, no. 29[lent by Otto Naumann].
Budapest, Szépművészeti 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 [lentby the present owner].
Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam, “Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The
Leiden Collection,” 4 February–27 August 2023, no. 14 [lent by the present owner].

References
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,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah
Page 8 of 9264, 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 Master Paintings.
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.
De Vries, A. Ingelijst werk. De verbeelding van arbeid en beroep in de vroegmoderne Nederlanden.
Amsterdam, 2003, 53.
Cavalli-Björkman, Görel. “Tobias in the House of Edna and Raguel.” In Rembrandt och hanstid: Människan i Centrum / Rembrandt and His Age: Focus on Man. Edited by Görel Cavalli- Björkman,
404–5, no. 118. Exh. cat. Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum. Budapest, 2014.
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, 70–73, no. 14. [Exhibition catalogue also published in Dutch.]

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 been significantly
altered. There is a handwritten inscription and hand-drawn circle but no wax collection seals, stencils, paperlabels 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 whitehighlight associated with all four figures. Areas of detail in all four figures 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. The images and Xradiograph 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 the right and that Sarah and Edna were originally
positioned closer together. Pentimenti under Raquel’s chin and throughout Tobias’s lower face indicate shifts
in the position of their faces.
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Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah
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The painting is indistinctly signed in dark paint right of center along the upper edge and is undated.
The painting was cleaned and restored in 2002 prior to its acquisition in 2004. The painting is in faircondition and state of preservation with areas of abrasion and out-of-tone restorations along the background.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection