Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coatprobably early 1650s

Circle of Rembrandt van Rijn

oil on canvas
114 x 96.2 cm
GE-101© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat
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How To Cite
Wheelock, Arthur K. "Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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The Old Testament story of Joseph fueled the imagination of Dutch artists,

Comparative Figures

not only for the marvelous exploits of the young leader, but also for the
jealousies, deceits and betrayals that mark the complex narrative of hislife.[1] The cause of many of those jealousies was the coat of many colors
that his father, Jacob, had presented to him as a sign that he was thefavored 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 tokill him. However, Reuben, one of the brothers, dissuaded them fromFig 1. Jan Pynas, Jacob Shown
Joseph’s Bloody Coat, 1618, oil
on panel, The State Hermitage
Museum, St. Petersburg, inv.
5588

committing fratricide and, instead, they threw Joseph into a pit. Although
Reuben intended to rescue Joseph and return him to his father, Joseph
was taken to Egypt after the others sold him to passing Ishmaelites fortwenty pieces of silver. Reuben, upon discovering that Joseph was
missing, then conspired with his brothers to deceive Jacob into believingthat 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 theaged 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.

Fig 2. Jan Lievens, Jacob
Receiving Joseph’s Bloody Coat,probably mid 1640s, oil oncanvas, Collection Joseph andLieve Guttmann, USA

In this dramatic visualization of the story, one feels the full horror of the
moment 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 an inconsolable man devastated by thedreadful 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 thebrothers. Other family members, including a praying man in the lower left,
try to support Jacob physically and emotionally, but to no avail. Two dogs,
one drawn to the 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 entrancewayof the courtyard.

Fig 3. Gerbrandt van den
Eeckhout, Jacob Shown Joseph’s
Bloody Coat, c. 1665, pen andbrown ink and gray washes,
Musée du Louve, Paris, 22.906

Over the course of the seventeenth century, a number of Dutch artists
depicted this biblical 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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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an inconsolable Jacob grieving over the bloody coat, surrounded by caring
members of his family. Jan Lievens (1607–74) must have known Pynas’sforceful 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
been shown the bloody cloak, sits with crossed arms and refuses to be
comforted by his family. Lievens intensified the dramatic moment bybringing the action closer to the viewer and eliminating compositional
elements that Pynas had included to place the scene within a larger
narrative framework. Lievens also altered Jacob’s posture, making it morerigid, 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 ofinspiration 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 to emulate 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 of Jacob’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] andthe play inspired some of the varied depictions of this story that
Amsterdam artists made during these years.[5] The most theatrical of thesepaintings, the Leiden Collection work is an almost verbatim portrayal of
Reuben’s vision of the distraught Jacob throwing up his arms 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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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painting dates from the early 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 number of years. Most recently, Werner Sumowski has proposed thatthe painting was executed in the mid- to late 1660s by Gerbrand van den
Eeckhout (1621–74), largely on the basis of similarities that exist between
it and Van den Eeckhout’s drawing of the same subject in the Louvre(fig3).[6] He concluded that the drawing, which he dates to the mid- to late1660s, was a preliminary study for the painting.[7]The striking similarities between the drawing and the painting initially seemto substantiate Sumowski’s conclusion. In each work the distraught Jacoblies at the lower left 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 the two works—for
example, in the angle of Jacob’s outthrust arms, and the number anddisposition of the figures populating the scene—to suggest that thedrawing was an independent creation only loosely connected to thepainting.
A date in the mid- to late 1660s does not accord with the stylistic characterof 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 understated manner rather than emphatically stressing thedrama, as in this work. In his later works he modeled his figures quite
carefully and gave his scenes added pictorial interest 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 explainedby Van den Eeckhout’s approach to creating his series of drawings on thelife of Joseph: he looked 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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Bloody Coat to the Leiden Collection painting must be understood in asimilar 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 Coatis consistent with Van den Eeckhout’s style of painting from the 1650s.
The story of Joseph intrigued Van den Eeckhout throughout his career,and he even made a series of drawings of the life of Joseph in the early
1640s.[9] Among the many Old Testament narratives he painted in the1640s and 1650s, moreover, are a number that depict episodes from thelife of Joseph. He executed these paintings in a rough, expressive mannerthat he must have learned when studying with Rembrandt in the late1630s. Generally, Van den Eeckhout preferred a rather dark, expansive
setting for his scenes, and he accented his figures with dramaticallyfocused light effects and rich colors, 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 thecanvas without modulating the planes of color, differ from the more fluid
brushwork that characterizes Van den Eeckhout’s style of painting.
Unfortunately, an alternative attribution for this painting has yet to befound. Although the dramatic focus of the composition, the chiaroscuro
effects, and the rough brushwork are all broadly related to works being
produced by artists working within Rembrandt’s orbit around midcentury—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 thisexpressive and emotionally charged painting as “Circle of Rembrandt,”
and to date it to the early 1650s.
-Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Endnotes
1. See Christian Tümpel in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter
der niederländischen Kunst (Exh. cat. Münster, Westfälisches Landdesmuseum, 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.
(Amsterdam, 1930), 4:74.
3. Joost van den Vondel, De werken van Vondel, ed. Leo Simons et al. (Amsterdam, 1930),
4:74. The English translation is taken from Jeroen Giltaij,The Drawings by Rembrandt and
His School in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen (Exh. cat. Rotterdam, Museum
Boymans-van Beuningen, 1988), 98, no. 32.
4. J. A. 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 themid-1650s in the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, also depicted this subject.
For Victors’s painting in the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw, see Werner Sumowski,Gemälde
der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden , 6 vols. (Landau, 1983), 4:2600, no. 1739. For
Rembrandt’s drawing, see Jeroen Giltaij, The Drawings by Rembrandt and His School in
the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen (Exh. cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van
Beuningen, 1988), 98–9.
6. Werner Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School , ed. and trans. Walter L. Strauss, 10
vols. (New York, 1979–92), 3:1422–23, no. 656; 1772, fig. 46. 9, no. 32.
7. Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden , 6 vols. (Landau,
1983), 2:737, no. 451.
8. Werner Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, ed. and trans. Walter L. Strauss, 10
vols. (New York, 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. (New York, 1979–92), 3:1504–14, nos. 697x–702x. Van den Eeckhout, however, nevercompleted this cycle.

Provenance© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Jean-Baptist-Pierre Lebrun (1748–1813) (his sale, Paris, 20 December 1773, no. 12 [1,160
francs to Doujeu], as by Rembrandt).
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 by descent 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 [lentby the Earl of 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 [lent by the present owner].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, andFrench 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, C. Rembrandt, sa vie et ses oeuvre. 2nd edition. Paris, 1877, 519.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat
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Sweetser, Moses Foster. Rembrandt. Boston, 1879, 153.
Von Bode, Wilhelm. Studien zur Geschichte der holländischen Malerei . Brunswick, 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 . 2 vols. New York, 1894, 2:235.
Translated by F. Simmonds. From Rembrandt, sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps. Paris,
1893.
Von Bode, Wilhelm, and Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. The Complete Work of Rembrandt. 8
vols. Paris, 1897–1905, 5:80, no. 335; 7:211, no. 335.
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. Künstler-Inventare. 9 vols. The Hague, 1915, 1:1742.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelius. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent
Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century Based on the Work of John Smith.

8 vols.

London, 1907–27, 6:31, no. 15. Translated from Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis
der Werke der hervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts.

10 vols.

Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28.
Tatlock, R. “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 undneust 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-Zeichnungenll. Bad Pyrmont, 1961, 18, no. 991.
Schneider, Hans, and Ekkart, Rudi. Jan Lievens, sein Leben und seine Werke . Amsterdam,
1973, 170, no. 1.
Sumowski,Werner. Drawings of the Rembrandt School . 10 vols. Edited and translated byWalter L. Strauss. New York, 1979–92, 3:1422, no. 656, 1772, fig. 46.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden . 6 vols. Landau, 1983,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Jacob Shown Joseph’s Bloody Coat
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2:737, no. 451, 814.

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).

Versions Notes

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 isbroad cusping along the upper and 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 andknee 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 aloose, sketchy manner (different in handling and with none of the fine details and brushwork
present in GE-100). Sets of sweeping, arched, parallel scratches along the upper right quadrantof the composition, located above, through, and to the left of the architectural arch as well as
through the figures, suggest this area of the composition has been scraped and reworked.[1]No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Dark
underdrawn lines 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 theinfrared region. Further investigation is required.
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The painting is unsigned and undated.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since acquisition in 2009 and remains ina good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

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

© 2017 The Leiden Collection