Sacrifice of Iphigenia
Jan Steen(Leiden 1626 – 1679 Leiden)

1671
oil on canvas
134.6 x 172.7 cm
signed and dated: “Jan Steen / 1671”
JS-112

How to cite
Kloek, Wouter. “Sacrifice of Iphigenia” (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 December2023).
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.

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Jan Steen’s late biblical and mythological paintings often surprise and bewilder theComparative Figures

viewer, and none more so than this monumental work of 1671. Here the young,beautiful Iphigenia has been brought to an altar to be sacrificed to appease an angry
goddess, yet the scene has little of the gravity one would expect from such a serious
subject. Surrounding the demure heroine, dressed in virginal white, are an array oftheatrical types that seem to overplay their parts: the blood-thirsty executioner, theold crone yelling at the crying child, the despairing father, a conniving priest,
supercilious soldiers, and a crowd of curious onlookers awaiting the denouement of
the action.
No one has expressed their bewilderment about this work more forcefully than Sir
Joshua Reynolds (1723–92), who could not restrain himself from railing that “thecountenances are so familiar, and consequently so vulgar . . . that one would be almost
tempted to doubt, whether the artist did not purposely intend to burlesque his

Fig 1. Jan Steen, Supper at Emmaus,
ca. 1665–66, oil on canvas, 134 x 104
cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SKA-1932

subject.”[1] Indeed, Reynolds’s comments raise questions about how one should
approach this masterpiece, conceived in a manner totally contrary to classicizing
pictorial traditions, not only ones to which Reynolds adhered in the eighteenth
century, but also those current during Steen’s own lifetime.
Not all of Steen’s biblical and mythological scenes are humorous or satirical: see, forexample, his Supper at Emmaus in the Rijksmuseum (fig 1).[2] So when Steen did opt
to introduce humor to a serious subject such as the sacrifice of Iphigenia, one needs
to ask why and for what intent? The question is particularly intriguing because Steen
only depicted this story from the Trojan War once, in this large painting that heexecuted near the end of his career. To some extent the answer lies in Steen’s
fascination with the theater, but it also revolves around his awareness of the social,

Fig 2. Jan Steen, Moses Trampling
Pharaoh’s Crown, ca. 1670, oil oncanvas, 78 x 79 cm, Mauritshuis, The
Haguepolitical, and religious disputes in the Dutch Republic. As discussed below, it is likelythat Steen decided to depict this subject in a satirical manner as a means to comment
critically on the complicated theological and political power struggles occurring in theseventeenth-century Dutch Republic.
The dramatic scenario surrounding the sacrifice of Iphigenia was the focus of
Euripides’s influential play Iphigenia at Aulis (408–6 B.C.). The story unfolds at thevery beginning of the Trojan War, shortly after Paris abducted Helen, the wife of
Menelaus, and took her to Troy. Menelaus’s brother, Agamemnon, was the leader ofan expedition of Greek warriors who gathered at Aulis, a port in central Greece, to set
sail for Troy to retrieve Helen. When unfavorable winds prevented his fleet fromFig 3. Nicolas Beatrizet, presumably
after Francesco Salviati, The Sacrificeof Iphigenia, ca. 1553–55, engraving,
320 x 445 mm, British
Museum, London, 1951,0407.80, ©
The Trustees of the British Museum

departing, the seer Calchas discovered that the goddess Diana was delaying the ships
as an act of revenge against Agamemnon, who had previously killed a stag in her
sacred woods. Calchas told Agamemnon that to appease the goddess, he would have
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to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. Agamemnon thus summoned Iphigenia and his
wife, Clytemnestra, to Aulis under the pretext that their daughter would be married to
the young hero Achilles—a ruse devised by Ulysses. Achilles, initially ignorant of the
deception, became incensed when Agamemnon’s trickery came to light and attempted
to prevent Iphigenia’s death. Ultimately, however, Iphigenia volunteered to besacrificed so that her father’s ships might sail for Troy. When the noble maiden was
led to the altar, Diana herself intervened and spared Iphigenia by allowing a stag to be

Fig 4. Jan de Baen, The Syndics, 1675,
oil on canvas, 152 x 315 cm, Stedelijk
Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, inv. S
12slain in her stead.
Jan Steen could have read Euripides’s play when he was at the Latin School in Leiden,probably in the form of Erasmus’s Latin translation of the Greek text. Although
Steen’s painting reflects the essential narrative of the Greek author’s play, his
distinctive interpretation of the narrative indicates that Euripides’s text was not his
only source of inspiration. Also important for him was the 1617 play Iphigenia by the
Dutch playwright Samuel Coster (1579–1665).[3]Coster, a medical doctor, founder of the Duytsche Academie and a man of libertine
ideas, satirized in his Iphigenia the extremism of the orthodox clergy. This was quite
daring in these years of strong antagonism between two factions of the Dutch
Reformed Church: the Remonstrants and the Counter-Remonstrants. The religious
dispute became a political power struggle when Johan van Oldenbarnevelt(1547–1619), the most prominent Dutch politician of the era, sided with the first,
more liberal group, while Prince Maurits of Orange (1567–1625), the commander inchief of the Dutch forces, opted for the orthodox Counter-Remonstrants. By 1617,
Coster could not know that this dispute ended with the drama of the execution in
1619 of the old leader, Oldenbarnevelt, ordered by Prince Maurits. The dominance of
the Couter-Remonstrants lasted during the following decades.
In his play, Coster stressed the dilemma Agamemnon faced, a leader who did notknow which advice to follow. In order to stress this antithesis, Coster introduced asecond priest, the seer Euripylus, who demanded strict obedience to religious rules, incontrast with the priest Calchas who plays a moderate role. At the first performanceof the play, it must have been evident to the public that in calling for the sacrifice of ayoung maiden, Euripylus mirrored the uncompromising attitude of the orthodox
calvinist preachers of the time.
Coster deliberately confronted his audience with moral problems, worded in former
times, but still topical. In the introduction to his play he stated that the poets of
antiquity did not just leave the play to posterity as an invention, but that they meant it
as:a painting on the wall, in which observant people can measure the course of the© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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World, and can determine how Hypocrisy, under the cloak of Religion, displays
his character. How Hunger for political and financial power, under the guise ofsincerity, even if it results in total upheaval, glorifies its knavery and makes it
work to her benefit.[4]In 1630, when Coster’s play was put on the stage again, the Amsterdam clergymen
forced the burgomasters to ban all public performances of Coster’s Iphigenia.
However, the issues that Coster raised had ongoing currency within the Dutch
Republic throughout most of the seventeenth century.
In 1670–71 the young Prince Willem III of Orange (1650–1702) was about to comeof age, and it was unclear what his role in the Republic should be; the debate overpersonal liberty, religious tolerance, and overbearing church interference in civic life
had flared up again; and noted philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–77) had published
his acclaimed Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in 1670, in which he attacked theProtestant church leadership’s interference in secular society and argued forindividual liberty. So it is hardly surprising that in 1671 Jan Steen turned to Coster’s
politicized version of Iphigenia as the basis for his pictorial message of caution. It is
not so clear whether the two priests may be recognised in Steen’s painting. Evidently,
the man with the mitre is the bad guy, but is there—maybe the man with the fur cap
to the right—a second priest? It is very well possible that Steen just followed
Euripides’ play, while at the same time referring to the interpretations of Coster.
Jan Steen staged the scene across the canvas as though it were a theatricalperformance. The young victim kneels with her eyes closed before an altar erectedunder a statue of Diana. Her executioner, the personification of evil, eagerly awaits
the fateful command from a despondent Agamemnon who holds his head in despair
while resting his right arm on his walking stick. A bearded priest wearing a bishop’s
miter, probably Calchas, possibly Euripylus, emphatically urges him to act. Behind
Agamemnon stands a helmeted soldier looking askance toward Agamemnon, likely
Ulysses, who conceived the plan to bring Iphigenia to Aulis. At left, mirroring
Agamemnon, an old woman leaning on a stick may be Agamemnon’s wife,
Clytemnestra, who accompanied Iphigenia to Aulis. Steen also added a number of
figures not mentioned in literary sources to enhance his narrative. The crying
youngster with a broken bow and arrow represents Cupid, disappointed that he was
not able to kindle the flame of love between Iphigenia and Achilles. The young
woman kneeling in front of the altar helps fulfill Diana’s wish to sacrifice a stagrather than Iphigenia by draping laurel vines around its neck. Steen enriched the rightforeground with a translucent bottle of oil and a basket of roses half-covered by asplendid piece of Indian chintz.[5]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Steen made use of a variety of visual sources, including his own work, in conceiving
this painting. For example, the figures of the priest and Agamemnon derive fromcomparable figures in his Moses Trampling Pharaoh’s Crown, ca. 1670 (fig 2).[6]Steen must also have consulted the print The Sacrifice of Iphigenia by Nicolas
Beatrizet (1515–after 1565), then thought to have been based on a design byMichelangelo (1475–1564) (fig 3).[7] Steen not only took over the image of the stagfrom this print, but also the pose of Iphigenia with her crossed arms.[8]Steen likely made this large painting for Willem van Heemskerck (1613–92), a
leading cloth manufacturer in Leiden and a man of great erudition.[9] In 1675, Van
Heemskerck, who appears as a cloth merchant and syndic in a group portrait by Jan
de Baen (1633–1702) in Leiden’s Lakenhal (fig 4), was also an accomplished glass
calligrapher, poet, and the author of several plays.[10] It was in these latter capacities
that his image was included in Panpoëticon Batavum, a collection of paintings ofDutch poets that Aernout van Halen (1673–1732) created in the early eighteenth
century. Steen’s acquaintance with Van Heemskerck, his senior by 10 years, probably
stemmed from his earlier childhood. The house belonging to Van Heemskerck’s
grandfather stood on the Nieuwe Rijn next to the house of the painter Isaac Claesz
van Swanenburgh (1537–1614).[11] In 1647 Steen’s family lived on the south side of
the Nieuwe Rijn, diagonally opposite these houses. After Steen’s return to Leiden in
1670, the two men would have likely reconnected because of their shared interest in
the arts and theater.
Van Heemskerck is one of the few contemporary owners of Steen’s work whose nameis known. In his collection was not only Sacrifice of Iphigenia but also Peasants
Merrymaking Outside an Inn (JS-108), both of which were inherited by Van
Heemskerck’s descendent, Leonard van Heemskerck. It is remarkable that that two of
Steen’s large paintings—both nearly two meters wide—were owned by one person
and, centuries later, are again in the hands of a single owner.
Steen’s dramatic figures, with their accentuated gestures and facial distortions, reflect
his abiding interest in the theater. A number of his paintings have been connected toplays, and he repeatedly used stage props, such as curtains, in his works. Sacrifice ofIphigenia, in particular, resembles the spectacular tragicomedies of the playwright anddirector of the Amsterdam theatre Jan Vos (1612–67), whose works were performedin Amsterdam during the 1650s and 1660s. It seems probable that Steen’s inherent
theatrical inclinations led him to pursue an equivalent mode in painting in the 1670s,
when Vos’s extravagant productions had come under attack by classicists seeking apurer form of theater.[13] In the mid-1670s Amsterdam’s theater, which had beenrebuilt in 1665, had become subject to strict regulations by the church. It banned all
kinds of pieces, particularly those referring to political and religious disputes, as had© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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been the case with Coster’s Iphigenia, which had not been performed in the theater
since 1630.
Not all plays, however, were performed exclusively in public theaters. Plays were also
read out loud in domestic settings. In the second half of the seventeenth century,
Holland had small reading societies at which roles were allocated to the members andplays were read aloud in a group.[14] It is entirely possible that Steen and Van
Heemskerck belonged to the same play-reading club and that they both participated in
the reading of a piece, such as Coster’s Iphigenia. Steen, a Catholic, and Van
Heemskerck, a Remonstrant, would certainly have sympathized with the mockery of
the fanatical Reformed clergymen that had caused the play to be banned from thestage. This painting, with its array of theatrical poses and gestures, may well havebeen made with such a recitation in mind.
Steen’s comic mode is greatly beloved the world over; however, historically he has notbeen without his critics. Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his Sixth Discourse, written forstudents of the Royal Academy in 1774, characterized Jan Steen as a master who, if
he had lived in Rome and had received instruction from Michelangelo and Raphaelinstead of from Adriaen Brouwer and Jan van Goyen, could have become a great
artist: “he would have ranged with the pillars and supporters of our Art.”[15] As
already noted, in his Eighth Discourse of 1786 Reynolds lashed out at the primeexample of Steen’s failings, Sacrifice of Iphigenia.[16] Reynold’s criticisms have a ringof truth, particularly as seen from a classicist vantage point, but here the English
painter and critic entirely misses Steen’s cautionary political commentary. Steen, wholoved to make viewers laugh, does not in any way ridicule the heroism of Iphigenia,
but rather emphasizes the weaknesses and deceitful behavior of those surrounding
her. His intent, almost certainly, was to mock the self-righteous behavior ofseventeenth-century theologians, much as the playwright Samuel Coster had done
earlier in the century.
I am most grateful to Arthur Wheelock and Henriette Rahusen for thoughtful commentson the first draft of this entry.

- Wouter Kloek, 2017

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Endnotes
1. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. Robert R. Wark, (New Haven, 1975), 236.
2. In this respect, the range of Steen’s history paintings differs little from that of his genre scenes, in which
he painted both quietly reflective images (JS-116) and raucous scenes that emphasize the foibles ofhuman behavior (JS-103).
3. In 1671, the same year that Steen painted this work, the story of the sacrifice of Iphigenia was once
again introduced in a text that Steen would have known, Joost van den Vondel’s Dutch translation of
Ovid’s Metamorphoses. However Ovid’s text, which appears in book 12, only briefly mentions
Iphigenia’s sacrifice, so it is unlikely that his account affected Steen’s interpretation of the story. It is
unlikely that Steen referred to Joost van den Vondel’s play Ifigenie in Tauren, 1666. Vondel’s play, atranslation of Euripides, deals with a later episode in the life of Iphigenia: the period in which she was
entrusted, as a priestess in Tauris, with the task of sacrificing strangers to Diana. Vondel’s play gives
only a short summary of Iphigenia’s earlier life, and there is no mention of the prophecy of Calchas, orof the dilemma faced by her father.
4. Samuel Coster, Iphigenia–Treurspel (1617) in R. A. Kollewijn, ed., Samuel Coster’s werken (Haarlem,1883); see pp. 223–24 for Coster’s introduction, in which he outlines his play. On the importance ofSamuel Coster, see Mieke B. Smits-Veld, Samuel Coster, ethicus-didacticus (Groningen 1986).
5. Around 1668 Steen discovered the possibilities offered by chintz in the rendering of colorful still-life
details. See, for example, his Samson and Delilah of 1668 in Los Angeles and his Marriage of Tobias
and Sarah in San Francisco (H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan
Steen, Painter and Storyteller, ed. Guido Jansen (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996), nos. 34, 45. Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis has kindly
identified the chintz. On the subject of chintz, see Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis and Hillie Smit, European
Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, 1987).
6. Steen made a drawing of that subject and used it, with some adjustments, for the painting in the
Mauritshuis in The Hague. The painting is generally dated to ca. 1670; the drawing was probably madeslightly earlier. The authenticity of the drawing is not undisputed. It is assumed that it was produced
under the master’s supervision by a pupil in his studio; see Wouter Kloek, Jan Steen
1626–1679 (Amsterdam, 2005), 47–49. See also Ariane van Suchtelen, Jan Steen in the Mauritshuis (The
Hague, 2011), 18–21, where the drawing’s authenticity is not doubted.
7. Today the design is attributed to Francesco Salviati. See Wouter Kloek, Jan Steen 1626–1679 (Zwolle,2005), 65–66.
8. Steen often showed off his grounding in art by borrowing images from his illustrious predecessors. SeeMariët Westermann, The Amusements of Jan Steen (Zwolle, 1997), chap. 5, and Wouter Kloek, Jan
Steen 1626–1679 (Zwolle, 2005), 67–73. In addition to Pieter Bruegel, Lucas van Leyden, Adriaen van© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Ostade, Rembrandt, and Raphael, Michelangelo, too, thus deserves a place in Steen’s gallery of pastmasters who served as his role models.
9. Van Heemskerck’s friends included Constantijn Huygens, who wrote several poems for him,presumably as a token of gratitude for engraved glasses. In 1677 Huygens honored him with a poem
devoted to the painter Maria van Oosterwijck and her maidservant and pupil, Geertje Pieters(see 1677:027).
10. Ingrid Moerman, “Kalligrafie: echte nationale dilettantenkunst,”Nieuw Letterkundig Magazijn 16 (1998):
23. For an assessment of his glass engravings, see: Pieter C. Ritsema van Eck and Henrica M. ZijlstraZweens, Glass in the Rijksmuseum, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1993–95).
11. Van Heemskerck’s grandfather was burgomaster of the city of Leiden and his wife was a granddaughterof the Leiden painter and burgomaster Isaac Claesz van Swanenburgh, who occupied a key position in
the artistic life of Leiden around 1600. Nevertheless, it would seem that, for financial reasons, Van
Heemskerck could not have played a role as a patron until relatively late in his life. As early as 1641, hedeclared bankruptcy as a cloth manufacturer, and even though he served at various times as dean orsenior officer of the cloth finishers’ guild from 1645 onward, he continued for a long time to be plaguedby financial difficulties. By the 1670s, however, he seems to have put such troubles behind him.
12. See Mariët Westermann, “Steen’s Comic Fictions,” in H. Perry Chapman, Wouter Th. Kloek, andArthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan Steen, Painter and Storyteller, ed. Guido Jansen (Exh. cat. Washington D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (New Haven, 1996), 63, where she argues that by“casting his history paintings of the late 1660s and 1670s in deliberately retardataire, non-classicist
modes, Steen created a comic mode of history that was consistent with his identity as a comic artist.”
13. Only in 1702 was a playhouse opened in Leiden. It was the second permanent theater in Holland, afterthat of Amsterdam.
14. Anna de Haas, De wetten van het treurspel: Over ernstig toneel in Nederland, 1700–1772 (Hilversum,1998), 209–13.
15. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. Robert R. Wark (New Haven, 1975), 109–10. AlthoughReynolds might already have seen Steen’s Sacrifice of Iphigenia by this time (after the sale in Leiden in
1771, it was sent to London, where it appeared at auction again in 1773), it is more likely that he did not
see the piece until a later time.
16. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. Robert R. Wark (New Haven, 1975), 236.

Provenance
Willem Jacobsz van Heemskerk (1613–92), Leiden; by descent to his grandson Leonard van Heemskerk(1689–1771), Leiden (his sale, Delfos, Leiden, 2 September 1771, no. 10 [to Pieter Fouquet]).
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Pieter Fouquet Jr. (1729–1800), Amsterdam (his sale, Langford’s, London, 10 February 1773, no. 58[for £10).
Nathaniel Hone the Elder (1718–84), London (Sale, Christie’s, London, 17 February 1781, no. 94 [toWhite for £16.16]).
Augusta Stanley (1823–87), Lady Cremorne, Countess of Dartrey, Monaghan, Ireland, 1842.
John Dawson Rawdon (1804–66), Armagh, Northern Ireland, 1854.
[Abraham Preyer, Paris and The Hague, 1926 (his sale, Frederik Muller & Co, Amsterdam, 8November 1927, to Jacques Goudstikker).][1]Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam; confiscated by Nazi forces in a forced sale; to Reichsmarschall
Hermann Göring, 13 July 1940.[2]Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (1893–1946), Carinhall, 13 July 1940; transported to Berchtesgaden,
no. 5311; collected by the Allies, 1945; restituted to the Foundation for Dutch Art Property, 1945.[3]Foundation for Dutch Art Property (Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit), The Hague, 1945–52, inv. no. SKC-1399; Collection of the Department for Dispersed National Artworks (Collectie Dienst voor ’s Rijks
Verspreide Kunstvoorwerpen), Amsterdam, 1952–60, inv. no. SK-C-1399; transferred to Rijksmuseum,
1960.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1960–2006, inv. no. SK-A-3984; restituted to Marei von Saher, 6 February
2006.[4]Marei von Saher, heir of Jacques Goudstikker, Greenwich, Conn. [to Dickenson Roundell Inc., 2008].
[Dickenson Roundell Inc., New York.]
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2008.

Provenance Notes

1. Rembrandt van Rijn’s Portrait of a Young Woman (“The Middendorf Rembrandt”), now in The Leiden
Collection, was also formerly with the art dealer Abraham Preyer.
2. Ledger of the Goudstikker Fine Art Collection (Grootboek van de Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker), 218–19,
inv. no. 1972, Municipal Archives of Amsterdam.
Pieter Lastman’s David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab, now in The Leiden Collection, was also formerlyin the collection of Jacques Goudstikker.
3. The painting is recorded at the Munich Central Collecting Point, 27 July–9 October 1945, no. 5355.
4. Pieter Lastman’s David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab, now in The Leiden Collection, was also restituted
to Marei von Saher.

Exhibition History© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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London, British Gallery, 1835.
London, Barbizon House, 1922, no. 33.
Leiden, Museum De Lakenhal, “Jan Steen,” 1926, no. 60 [lent by Abraham Preyer].
Amsterdam, “Nouvelles Acquisitions de la Collection Goudstikker,” May–June 1928, no. 34 [lent by
Jacques Goudstikker].
Brussels, Cinq siècle d’art. Exposition Universelle et Internationale, 1935, no. 782 [lent by Jacques
Goudstikker].
The Hague, Mauritshuis, “Herwonnen Kunstbezit,” March–May 1946, no. 60 [lent by the Foundation for
Dutch Art Property].
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, on loan with the permanent collection, 1948–58 [lent by the Foundation for
Dutch Art Property, 1945–52; the Department of Dispersed National Collections, 1952–58].
The Hague, Mauritshuis, Jan Steen in het Mauritshuis, 1958–59 [lent by the Department of Dispersed
National Collections].
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, exhibited with the permanent collection, 1960–2006.
Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum. “Greek Gods and Heroes in the Age ofRubens and Rembrandt,” 28 September 2000–8 January 2001; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, 3February–8 May 2001, no. 76 [lent by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam].
Greenwich, Conn., Bruce Museum, “Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker,”
10 May–7 September 2008; New York, The Jewish Museum, 12 March–2 August 2009; San Antonio,
McNay Art Museum, 5 October 2009–10 January 2010, no. 28 [lent by the present owner].
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, July 2012–April 2013 [lent by thepresent owner].
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, on loan with the permanent collection, January 2010–April 2016 [lent by
the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,” 22
February–22 May 2017, no. 4 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The Leiden
Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017, no. 71 [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, no. 71 [lent by thepresent owner].
Moscow, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, “The Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer: Masterpiecesof The Leiden Collection,” 28 March–22 July 2018, no. 64 [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, no. 64 [lent by the present owner].
Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi, “Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces from© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre,” 14 February–18 May 2019, no. 94 [lent by thepresent owner].
Amsterdam, Hermitage Amsterdam, “Rembrandt and his Contemporaries: History Paintings from The
Leiden Collection,” 4 February–27 August 2023, no. 33 [lent by the present owner].

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Painters. London, 1842, 9: 495, no. 57.
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Reynolds, Sir Joshua. Discourses Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy. London, 1905, 359.
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The support, a single piece of plain-weave canvas, has been wax-lined onto a similar secondary canvas andstretched onto a 7-member stretcher. X-radiography reveals cusping at all four edges, indicating that theoriginal painted dimensions have not been altered. There is a modest amount of retouching densest in
Iphegenia’s sash and in several large patches left of the executioner and along the left edge.
A light gray ground has been applied, followed by a thin transparent brown underlayer, used to tone the gray.
This double ground structure of brown over gray is evident at abraded areas of surface and is occasionallyleft visible between painted forms, such as between the executioner’s profile and the sky. The paint has been
applied in thin, opaque layers with a limited use of glazing and economic use of ground and underpainting.
For example, the ground is left exposed surrounding the tip of the executioner’s blade and acts as the
background. Some areas also show localized underpaintings, for instance in the blue drape around thekneeling woman’s shoulders, the form was first established with white paint and bands of blue and pink tocreate shadows, followed by a transparent blue glaze overall.
Infrared examination reveals two sketching campaigns beneath the final painted surface. First, a dry medium
was used to describe the general location of folds in the textile in the foreground. Second, there is a darkcolored fluid oil sketch of the entire composition in broad cursory strokes. Slight compositional changes
visible as pentiments include changes the top of the king’s chair, which was originally curved, minor
alterations of various figures, and a widening of the tree trunk behind the executioner, which extends past theplanned reserve detected in the sky.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the lower left corner: ‘JanSteen/1671’.
The painting was restored in 1995 while at the Rijksmuseum and examined by the Boston Museum of Fine
Arts in 2011. It is in a good overall state of preservation.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection