Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
How to cite
Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. “Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions” (2020). 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 essay 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

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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History paintings tell stories. They may depict episodes of confrontation, recognition,or reconciliation, or moments inciting fear, betrayal, or desire. Often driven by anindividual’s weakness, a deep passion, or an inner conflict, historical narratives havethe potential to reveal either vice or virtue, to display a flawed moral character or an
expression of unwavering faith. Capturing the complex relationship between the“movements of the soul” and their outward manifestation in gesture and expression
constituted one of the greatest challenges for seventeenth-century Dutch artists.[1] One
approach was to render history paintings, which were primarily drawn from the Bible,
ancient history, and mythology, with great naturalism, so that beholders could

Fig 1. Pieter Lastman, David Gives
Uriah a Letter for Joab , 1619, oil
on panel, 42.8 x 63.3 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York, inv.
no. PL-100.

understand—and even personally experience—the passions, or emotions, portrayed
before them.[2] At the turn of the seventeenth century, Karel van Mander (1584–1606)
called the passions “the kernel and soul of art,” while Samuel van Hoogstraten(1627–78) considered them “the most noble [part of art].”[3] To achieve the lofty goalof depicting the passions meant that Dutch artists should not only “instruct and delight”
the beholder but, above all, “stir our minds.”[4]The Amsterdam painter Pieter Lastman (1583–1633) was one of the mostconsequential Dutch history painters in the early seventeenth century.[5] The

Fig 2. Hans Holbein, David and
Uriah, 1538, woodcut, 60 x 85 mm,
Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam,
inv. no. RP-P-OB-4511S(R).

extraordinary aptitude for storytelling on view in his David Gives Uriah a Letter for
Joab (fig 1), a pivotal scene from the life of the Old Testament King David, situates
this work at the nexus of The Leiden Collection, which features paintings of the humanfigure, not only portraits and tronies, but also historical, mythological, and genre
subjects.[6] Lastman brought an erudition, innovation, and expressiveness to his
depiction of historical themes that impacted a generation of artists in the Netherlands,
most importantly in the work of his pupils Jan Lievens (1607–74) and Rembrandt van
Rijn (1606–69), but also in paintings by Rembrandt’s students, including Ferdinand
Bol (1616–80), Govaert Flinck (1615–60), and Carel Fabritius (1622–54). Lastman’s
artistic heritage was likewise significant for artists working outside of Rembrandt’s

Fig 3. David and Uriah, 1556,
woodcut, 59 x 85 mm, from Den
Bibel, published by Hans de Laet,
Antwerp, VU Amsterdam
University Library, inv. no.
XC.05058.

immediate circle, such as Frans van Mieris (1635–81) and Jan Steen (1626–79), who
painted history scenes into the later seventeenth century.[7]This essay explores key aspects of Lastman’s approach to history painting through thelens of David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab. It addresses some of Lastman’s central
concerns as a history painter in seventeenth-century Amsterdam as well as the pictorial
implications his narrative and stylistic choices had for Dutch history painting.[8] Morespecifically, it examines the artist’s interest in portraying a moment of intense innerconflict and demonstrates how his knowledge of antique visual and textual sources,
along with contemporary cultural and intellectual traditions, impacted hisstorytelling.[9] Exploring these issues provides insight into Lastman’s ingenuity as apainter and offers a broader perspective on his place within The Leiden Collection.

Fig 4. Pieter Lastman, King David
Handing the Letter to Uriah, 1611,
oil on panel, 51.1 × 61.3 cm,
Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. no.
60.63, Detroit Institute of Arts,
USA Founders Society purchase
and Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Fund /Bridgeman Images.
© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Lastman and Religious History Painting in Early
Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
History painting held an important role in the artistic and cultural life of the Dutch
Republic, and by the second quarter of the seventeenth century, Amsterdam had risen
to become the genre’s center.[10] While stories drawn from ancient histories andmythologies, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pliny’s Natural History, and Virgil’s
Aeneid were popular among Dutch collectors, religious subjects from the Old and New
Testaments flourished alongside them.[11] Despite the contentious role of religious

Fig 5. Rembrandt van Rijn, Judas
Returning the Thirty Pieces of Silver,
1629, oil on panel, 79 x 102.3 cm,
Private Collection.

imagery in the Calvinist Reformed Church, the official religion of the Republic,
narrative biblical scenes were tolerated and even encouraged for the ways in which
they could evoke moral themes and provide a source of emulation for people’s daily
lives.[12] Depictions of Old Testament patriarchs, kings, and prophets, apocryphal
stories from the Book of Tobit and Book of Esther, and episodes from the life of
Christ, the Apostles, and the Evangelists, could be seen in historical terms andprovided models for human behavior, whether displayed in private homes or public,
civic spaces.[13]In a city like Amsterdam, which represented the multiconfessional nature of Dutch
society, members of the different sects of the Reformed Church (predominantly

Fig 6. Ferdinand Bol, Angel
Appearing to Elijah, ca. 1642, oil oncanvas, 162.6 x 177.8 cm, The
Leiden Collection, New York,
FB-104.

Remonstrants and Counter-Remonstrants) lived alongside Roman Catholic and Jewish
populations.[14] Artists, regardless of their own faith, negotiated these various belief
systems.[15] Religious history paintings were therefore not strictly made along
confessional lines, but rather could be viewed from within an individual’s own set ofbeliefs.[16] As a Catholic artist, Lastman would have produced works for Protestant aswell as Catholic households, and neither his religious convictions nor those of hiscollectors and patrons would necessarily have determined his choice of subject
matter.[17] Yet, as Tico Seifert and others have observed, Lastman may have adapted
the manner in which he approached certain biblical themes to reflect the faith of his[18]

patrons, many of whom came from the high end of the art market.

These broader circumstances laid the groundwork for a new approach to history

Fig 7. Carel Fabritius, Hagar andthe Angel, ca. 1645, oil on canvas,
157.5 x 136 cm, The Leiden
Collection, New York, inv. no.
CF-100.

painting in the early decades of the seventeenth century. For Lastman, this meant
turning away from the exaggerated expressions of Mannerism that had dominatedhistory painting at the end of the sixteenth century—large-scale works, often with nude
figures in active poses—and toward the depiction of biblical and profane themes withsmall, multifigure compositions, often set into landscapes, with “historical” details.
Orientalizing motifs, for instance, were intended to situate biblical scenes in a context
that resembled the holy land.[19] A group of contemporaries in Amsterdam, including
Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert (1591–1655), Jan (1581/82–1630) and Jacob Pynas© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 4 of 22(1592/3–after 1650), François Venant (1590–1636), and Jan Tengnagel (1584–1635),
followed Lastman’s narrative approach and rendered their scenes with a similar clarityof form and historical consciousness.[20] Together, they helped to establish
Amsterdam’s new artistic tradition.[21]Lastman emerged as the most innovative and erudite of his contemporaries.[22] His
work was informed by a vast knowledge of literary and historical texts, as well as
antique, Italian, and Netherlandish pictorial sources. Significant for his artistic
development was the journey to Italy that he undertook between ca. 1602/3 and 1607,
which likely included time in Venice, Padua, Florence, and Rome. He studied the workof Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto in Venice and saw the paintings and sculptures ofRaphael and Michelangelo in Rome alongside antique sculpture and architecture.
Elements of these artists’ works served as inspiration for Lastman and would later
become part of his pictorial repertoire.[23] Among the contemporary artists in Rome,some of whom Lastman may have encountered directly, were Caravaggio(1578–1610), the Flemish artist Paul Bril (ca. 1553/54–1626), and the German artist
Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), whose small-scale figures, depictions of landscapes,
and night scenes greatly impacted Lastman’s handling of narrative and composition.[24]Back in his native Amsterdam in 1607, Lastman increasingly looked to sixteenthcentury prints and biblical illustrations, incorporating their subjects and motifs into his
paintings. Biblical prints by Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574) and Maarten deVos (1532–1603), for example, which brought an historical vantage point deeply
informed by antiquity to their depictions of Old Testament scenes, supplied Lastman
with subject matter that had never before—or rarely—been depicted in paintings. With
this visual inspiration he combined his vast knowledge of literary sources.[25] He wasfamiliar with ancient Greek and Roman texts, stretching from Euripides, Herodotus,
and Ovid to Livy, and with contemporary sources like Karel van Mander’s Het
Schilderboeck, Guillaume du Choul’s Discours de la religion des anciens romains, as wellas sixteenth- and seventeenth-century emblem books.[26] By combining a range of
pictorial models and multiple textual sources in the depiction of a single subject,
Lastman imbued his scenes with their narrative and historical authenticity.[27] Sucherudite paintings would have appealed to Amsterdam liefhebbers (art lovers), who—as
the diplomat and poet Balthasar Gerbier (1592–1663) noted in his monumental poemof 1620, Eeer ende Claght-Dicht Ter Eeren van den Lofweerdighen Constrijcken ende
Gheleerden Henricus Goltizus—would have gazed upon Lastman’s paintings withpleasure.[28]Lastman’s iconographic choices, careful selection of authentic details, handling ofpaint, and modeling of forms were not the only aspects of his work that distinguishedhim in the early seventeenth century. He also understood the significance of selecting a© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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precise narrative moment. Lastman favored scenes from the Old Testament in which
the “hero” is shown in a moment of great conflict, particularly one that represented achange in the individual’s fate. Such episodes—meetings, encounters, and appearancesof the divine—affected the expressive potential of the story and placed the protagonist
at a crossroads.[29] Lastman could achieve this expressiveness in his work byrepresenting dramatic physical action, but also by capturing the character’s inner
struggles, passions, and strengths, thereby portraying the essence of an emotional
moment.

Lastman’s David and Uriah: Moving the Passions
In Lastman’s David and Uriah, which depicts a story from the Book of Samuel (2Samuel 11), a youthful King David sits on a dais between two large columns placedslightly off center. He grasps a letter that he will give to Uriah, a document that istantamount to a death warrant as it orders the soldier to be sent to the front line ofbattle.[30] Though David’s bearing is powerful, his furrowed brow and twisted bodylanguage bespeak the moral ambiguity of his position.[31] Uriah, in contrast, kneels
beside the throne forthrightly, his right hand outstretched to receive the letter, the otherplaced resolutely on his thigh. The young scribe looks on incredulously; his handhovers in space as if frozen in time. Bystanders in the background—even the dog
beside the throne—gaze upon the exchange between David and Uriah with
anticipation, heightening the composition’s emotional and psychological tension.
The well-informed viewer would have recognized what preceded and followed
Lastman’s scene: David had committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, while
her husband was away serving in the king’s army, and she had become pregnant withhis child. In an attempt to conceal his act, David recalled Uriah on a pretense and tried
to send him to Bathsheba, but Uriah’s loyalty to his fellow soldiers prevented him fromlying with his wife. David’s letter to Joab, the commander of his forces, essentiallycondemns Uriah to be killed at the front, allowing David to marry Bathsheba.
Although Lastman’s depiction of this biblical narrative had few pictorial precedents,
sixteenth-century prints provided him with important models for the representation of
the exchange between the two men. In a woodcut by Hans Holbein (1497/98–1543),
which first appeared in the 1538 edition of the Biblia Utriusque Testamenti iuxta
Vulgatam Translationem (fig 2), David’s outstretched hand and pointed finger pass on
the command, creating a physically charged encounter with Uriah.[32] Hans de Laet’s(1524?–66) slightly later woodcut, published in Antwerp in 1556 (fig 3), depicts Uriahkneeling obediently by David’s side as he accepts the letter.[33] In each of theseexamples, the balance of power is absolute. In his painting, however, Lastman presents
an earlier moment in the story: David has not yet handed over the letter that will seal
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Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Uriah’s fate. The compositional structure and expressive poses of the figures thus
present a more visually and emotionally complex relationship between the men andunderscore David’s compromised position.[34]The narrative moment reflected in Lastman’s painting belongs to the classical Greek
tradition of peripeteia (turnaround) that Aristotle described in his Poetics.
Peripeteia signifies the plot’s reversal, or transformation, resulting in a significant
change or resolution in the lives of the story’s characters.[35] Germane to its
development is the act of recognition, agnitio, or what Aristotle called “a change fromignorance to knowledge,” and from which the most intense and uncertain moment of
the narrative emerges.[36] Lastman’s challenge in David and Uriah was to portrayDavid’s betrayal in progress—at the cusp of the plot’s transformation—for the viewer
to witness as it unfolds. David and Uriah represents a dramatic reversal of events not
through physical means, but by stirring the conflicting passions of loyalty, betrayal, anddesire that shaped this moment of peripeteia.
In the 1640s, the playwright and author Joost van den Vondel (1587–1679), who was
keenly interested in the visual arts and in Lastman’s work, described the role ofperipeteia for contemporary theater, calling it staetveranderinge (“change of state”).[37]Vondel explained how “both principal rules of embellishment, called by the ancients
peripeteia and agnitio / or pivotal moment and recognition, function together.”[38] Theirrepresentation—in the visual arts or theater, in this case—was intended to produce thegreatest narrative tension. While Vondel’s concepts only became crucial for theater inthe second half of the seventeenth century, as Amy Golahny and others have noted,
they had already gained currency in intellectual and artistic circles in the 1610s, when
Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655) first introduced Aristotle’s text into the Netherlands.[39]A poet, scholar, and Leiden University professor, Heinsius published his influential
edition of Aristotle’s Poetics in 1610, followed by his commentary De Tragoediae
constitutione, in 1611.[40] Heinsius discussed peripeteia and agnitio and their role instirring the passions, following Aristotle’s explanation of the modes of recognition, andsimilarly emphasized the principle one as being when “the recognition gradually arises
from the very subject matter.”[41] Lastman was familiar with Heinsius, and likely alsowith Aristotle.[42] Whether or not he sought to demonstrate these authors’ precepts ofdramatic theory directly, his command of storytelling and poignant evocation of a
crucial turning point in David and Uriah indicates that he was receptive to such ideas
and applied them to his own history paintings.
Lastman’s powerful portrayal of human passions in David and Uriah was the result of amasterful combination of elements: a clear, structured composition with a brightpalette, even lighting, and carefully selected details that reflected his knowledge ofvarious literary and pictorial sources. As Christian Tümpel first demonstrated, Lastman© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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consulted both the biblical account and Flavius Josephus’s Antiquity of the Jews (book7, chapter 7), a record of the Jewish people written in the first century AD.[43] Lastman
included details only found in Josephus’s text, namely the red seal on the letter,signifying lawful authority. He also added other pictorial elements, such as the scribe,
which are not mentioned by Josephus or in the Bible.[44] At the same time, Lastman
incorporated antique motifs and architectural elements in order to suggest the scene’s
historical authenticity, including a dome resembling St. Peter’s, which was intended to
evoke Jerusalem, and Uriah’s helmet, which he based on an Italian helmet all’antica
that he had seen in Amsterdam.[45]Lastman had treated the subject of David and Uriah eight years earlier (fig 4).[46]While the episode represented in the two works is nearly identical—the handing overof the letter—Lastman initially depicted a later moment from the narrative, when
Uriah has already accepted the letter and thus his fate. In the first painting, Lastmanarranged the figures in a more tightly organized vertical composition than the
expansive, stage-like space he would utilize in the Leiden Collection work. The former
scene is more closely related to De Laet’s sixteenth-century woodcut (fig 3) in theexpression of power dynamics between the figures. When Lastman revisited thesubject in 1619, he introduced more storytelling to the scene and situated his figuresparallel to the picture plane, encouraging the beholder to “read” the narrative as if
played out before him. By expanding the space between the figures and allowing theexchange of glances to reveal itself slowly, Lastman instilled the composition withgreater expressive and emotional anticipation. With this evolved approach almost a
decade later, Lastman composed his story so that it could resonate more directly withthe viewer, thereby fulfilling the aim of stirring the mind, and the heart.[47]From Lastman to Rembrandt and His Pupils
In 1629, Constantijn Huygens, the secretary to the Stadholder Frederick Hendrik(1584–1647), art lover and poet, visited the studios of Lievens and Rembrandt inLeiden and observed how “Rembrandt was superior . . . in his sure touch and livelinessof emotions,” qualities that were essential for painting expressive history scenes.[48]Both men had studied with Lastman, with Lievens spending several years with themaster from 1617 to 1621, and Rembrandt six months in 1625. Lievens andRembrandt would have learned the key principles of history painting from Lastman,from the arrangement of figure groupings within a composition to portraying emotion
through action and expression. Lastman would have showed both pupils the essence ofstorytelling, demonstrating how gestures and glances, body language and composition,
could contribute to depicting deeply moving episodes of the human experience.[49]Nevertheless, Rembrandt, more than Lievens, excelled in capturing the “movements ofthe soul.”[50]© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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In his unpublished autobiography written between 1629 and 1631, Huygens
summarized Rembrandt’s depiction of the passions in Judas Returning the Thirty Piecesof Silver (fig 5):
Rembrandt devotes all his loving concentration to a small painting. . . . The
gesture of the single man, the despairing Judas . . . wailing, begging forforgiveness, and at the same time completely without hope, preserving no trace ofhope in his expression, the horrible face, the torn-out hair, the ripped garment, thetwisted arms, his hands clenched to the point of being bloody, lying prone and on
his knees because of some dark impulse, the whole body wracked by somehorrific misery. . . . I maintain that it did not occur to Protogenes, Apelles, orParrhasios, nor could it occur to them, were they to return to earth, that a youth, aDutchman, a beardless miller, could put so much into one human figure anddepict it all.[51]Huygens’s ekphrastic account of Rembrandt’s painting revealed his admiration for the
young artist’s ability to represent a complex range of emotions in a single figure,qualities that reflect a critical aspect of Lastman’s teachings. Rembrandt had
successfully transformed Judas’s inner despair into its outward expression, evoking forthe viewer by naturalistic and forceful means the truthfulness of his emotions.
Lastman’s sophisticated approach to history painting, defined by its attention to
narrative and historical detail and a wide range of pictorial and textual sources,continued to exert an impact on Rembrandt and his circle into the mid-1630s andbeyond.[52] Two paintings in The Leiden Collection by Rembrandt’s pupils Ferdinand
Bol (1616–80) and Carel Fabritius (1622–54), display some of the ways in which
Lastman’s narrative choices and understanding of dramatic concepts like peripeteia
resonated in the work of later Amsterdam artists.[53] Both Bol’s Angel Appearing toElijah (fig 6) and Fabritius’s Hagar and the Angel (fig 7) depict biblical subjects of
divine intervention at their most pivotal moments.[54] In Bol’s painting (1 Kings
16:29–34 and chapters 17–19), Elijah will soon be awoken and saved by the angel who
exhorts him to “arise and eat.”[55] In Fabritius’s moving scene (Genesis 21:15–19), theangel’s appearance to Hagar, who grasps her hands in prayer and has begun to weep,
will result in Hagar and her son Ishmael’s salvation.[56] Each painting portrays thenarrative moment just prior to when the characters’ lives will change. Bol’s andFabritius’s large-scale works, which were rendered with earth-toned palettes andcontrasts of light and dark, differ from Lastman’s paintings in form, style, and in theirprecise attention to historical specificity. Yet the manner in which these artists sought
to capture the inner struggles of the main protagonists at a pivotal and as yet© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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unresolved point in the narrative—a strategy dependent upon the viewer’s knowledgeof the story and its consequences—is consistent with Lastman’s treatment of historicalsubjects and the evocation of their human element.
Pieter Lastman was a seminal figure in establishing the character of Dutch history
painting. His rich knowledge of various visual and textual sources and motifs,
erudition, and familiarity with dramatic theater shaped his sophisticated approach to
the representation of historical themes. At the core of this achievement was the
depiction of the passions and his ability to kindle for the beholder the inner motions of
the mind and soul, often stirred by peripeteia. Lastman impacted painters well into theseventeenth century, his work offering artists a model for rendering this noble genre ofpainting. His powerful, nuanced representation of the human experience in David and
Uriah makes this work enduringly compelling and aptly reflects Vondel’s
characterization of the artist as the “Apelles of our Age.”[57]- Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 2020

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Endnotes
1. Samuel van Hoogstraten described Rembrandt’s mastery in representing “the movements of the soul” in
his Inleyding tot de hooge schoole de schilderkonst: Anders der zichtbaere werelt (Rotterdam, 1678), 75.
Dutch art theorists such as Karel van Mander, Franciscus Junius, and Van Hoogstraten discussed theimportance of representing the passions in their respective treatises. For further discussion, see Thijs
Weststeijn, “Between Mind and Body: Painting the Inner Movements According to Samuel van
Hoogstraten and Franciscus Junius,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed.
Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden,2010): 263–83.
2. While the emergence of a hierarchy of subject matter only developed in the later seventeenth century,
history paintings were long considered the highest form of art because they dealt with subjects of great
moral consequence. For a broad discussion of history painting, see Albert Blankert, “Introduction,” inGods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 14–33.
Artists sought to represent the passions across all genres. For an introduction to the role of the passions
in the art of the early modern Netherlands, as well as additional literature, see Stephanie S. Dickey andHerman Roodenburg, “Introduction: The Motions of the Mind,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early
Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for
History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 6–16. Dickey and Roodenburg note that no “unified concept of‘emotion’” existed in this period, and “the (sensual) ‘passions’ were distinguished from the (intellectual)‘affections’ with various shades of meaning.” They use the terms “passions” and “emotions”
interchangeably in their edited volume, a usage that this essay follows.
3. “Kern en ziel van de kunst,” as described by Karel van Mander in “Wtbeeldinghe derAffecten/passien/begeerlijckheden/en lijdens der Menschen (The representation of the affects, passions,desires, and sorrows of men),” in Karel van Mander, Den grondt der edel vrij Schilder-konst, ed. Hessel
Miedema (Utrecht, 1973), 6: 55, f. 27r. Van Mander’s Grondt was primarily directed at history painters(or figure painters). Van Hoogstraten referred to the passions as “alleredelste deel der kunst.” Samuel van
Hoogstraten, Inleyding tot de hooge schoole de schilderkonst: Anders der zichtbaere werelt (Rotterdam,
1678), 109; Thijs Weststeijn, “Between Mind and Body: Painting the Inner Movements According toSamuel van Hoogstraten and Franciscus Junius,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern
Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of
Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 264.
4. In his treatise The Painting of the Ancients, which was published in Latin in 1637 and in Dutch in 1641,
Franciscus Junius summarized the artists’ duty as akin to that of orators or ancient rhetoricians. Citing
Cicero’s De optimo genere oratorum, Junius wrote, “It is [the artists’] duty . . . that they should teach; it is© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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for their owne credit that they should delight; it is altogether requisite that they should move and stirre
our minde.” See Franciscus Junius, The Literature of Classical Art. 1. The Painting of the Ancients: De
picture veterum, According to the English Translation (1638) (Berkeley, 1991), 297, 330; and Thijs
Weststeijn, “Between Mind and Body: Painting the Inner Movements According to Samuel van
Hoogstraten and Franciscus Junius,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed.
Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden,2010): 280n20.
5. Cities across the Republic boasted respective traditions of history painting in the early seventeenth
century, including the work of Hendrick Goltzius and Cornelis van Haarlem in Haarlem, for example,
and of Abraham Bloemaert, Joachim Wttewael, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerrit van Honthorst, andDirck van Baburen in Utrecht. For history painting in Amsterdam, see note 10, and for Lastman, see
Christian T. Seifert, “Pieter Lastman, Constrijcken history Schilder tot Amsterdam—kunstreicher
Historienmaler zu Amsterdam,” in Pieter Lastman: in Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt (Exh. cat.
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006), 14–24.
6. At present, The Leiden Collection does not include any landscapes, and includes only one still life.
7. Little attention has been paid in the scholarship to the development of the treatment of histories bygenre painters, many of whom turned to historical subjects in the second half of the seventeenth
century. For further discussion, see Susan Kuretsky, “Independents and Eccentrics,” in Gods, Saints andHeroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington,
D.C., 1980), 253–89; for Frans van Mieris’s historical themes, see Quentin Buvelot, ed., Frans van
Mieris 1635–1681 (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art) (NewHaven, 2005), nos. 44 and 47; and Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris (1635–1681) the Elder (Doornspijk,
1981), 1: 89–91; 2: nos. 85, 97, 121. For Jan Steen as a history painter, see Lyckle de Vries, “Jan Steenzwischen Genre- und Historienmalerei,” Niederdeutsch Beitragen zur Kunstgeschichte 22 (1982): 113–28;
Ariane van Suchtelen, ed., Jan Steen’s Histories (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis) (Zwolle, 2018). The
investigation of the history paintings of the Leiden fijnschilders as well as those of Jan Steen will be
explored in future essays in The Leiden Collection Catalogue.
8. Dutch history painting in the seventeenth century has long been relegated to a minor role in thescholarship. In the decades following Gods, Saints and Heroes, 1980, the first major exhibition to treat
the subject, thematic exhibitions on aspects of history painting and publications on individual artists
have appeared sporadically. See, for example: Christian Tümpel, ed., Het Oude testament in deschilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel
Museum) (Zwolle, 1991); Albert Blankert et al., Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting (Exh.
cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut)(Rotterdam, 1999); Peter Schoon et al., Greek Gods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt(Exh. cat. Athens, National Gallery / Alexandros Soutzos Museum and Netherlands Institute; Dordrecht,
Dordrechts Museum) (Dordrecht, 2000); Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt and the Female Nude
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Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 12 of 22(Amsterdam, 2006); Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650(Amsterdam, 2017); Ariane van Suchtelen, ed., Jan Steen’s Histories (Exh. cat. The Hague, Mauritshuis)(Zwolle, 2018). The subject of history painting is conspicuously absent in the more recent assessment of
the field in Wayne Franits, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Dutch Art of the SeventeenthCentury (Burlington, Vt., 2016).
9. This essay builds upon the wide-ranging scholarship on Lastman’s painting, particularly the more recent
contributions made by Amy Golahny, but takes a new perspective by focusing on Lastman’s strategies
for depicting a dramatic narrative and evoking the passions as a central means of storytelling. See Amy
Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern
Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of
Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 179–201; and Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death
Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and 1619,” in The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in
Honor of Larry Silver, ed. Debra Taylor Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden,2017), 500–514. For full references to David Gives Uriah a Letter for Joab, see the entry in thiscatalogue.
10. For a recent discussion regarding Amsterdam’s role as a new center for history painting spurred by a
confluence of wealth, trade, and a growing merchant class, see Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals:
History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650 (Amsterdam, 2017). Sluijter notes that “history painting had
developed into an Amsterdam specialty. Not only in absolute numbers but also the percentage of artists
making history paintings in Amsterdam, from the mid-1620s until the late 1660s, was considerably
higher than in the next two largest centers of painting production, Haarlem and The Hague” (14). For
Amsterdam as a center for Old Testament subject matter, see Christian Tümpel, “Die Alttestamentliche
Historienmalerei im Zeitalter Rembrandts,” in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen
Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst, ed. Christian Tümpel (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods HistorischMuseum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen Landesmuseum) (Munich, 1994), 16–19.
11. As John Michael Montias observed in his extensive examination of seventeenth-century Amsterdam
inventories, this could also be meant literally: religious and secular works could often be found displayed
beside one other in private homes. See John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century
Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions,” in Art in History, History in Art: Studies inSeventeenth-Century Dutch Culture, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Chicago, 1991), 331–72,
especially 337–40; and John Loughman and John Michael Montias, Public and Private Spaces: Works of
Art in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Houses (Zwolle, 2000). For an overview of historical subject matter
popular in the Dutch Republic, see Albert Blankert, “Introduction,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch
Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National
Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980),
18–26. For mythological subjects, see Eric Jan Sluijter, De “Heydense fabulen” in de schilderkunst van
de Gouden Eeuw: Schilderijen met verhalende onderwerpen uit de klassieke mythologie in de Noordelijke
Nederlanden, circa 1590–1670 (Leiden, 2000); and for Old Testament subject matter, see Christian© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Tümpel, ed., Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst(Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen
Landesmuseum) (Munich, 1994).
12. For an excellent discussion of the religious landscape of the United Provinces in this period, see Shelley
Perlove and Larry Silver, Rembrandt’s Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age (University
Park, Penn., 2009), 17–67.
13. Blankert noted how biblical subjects were understood as historical events by seventeenth-century artists
and patrons, though he did not reflect on the display of religious art within Catholic households or
hidden churches in cities like Amsterdam and Haarlem—works that were intended for devotional
purposes. The availability of the Bible in translation and the popularization of illustrated editions
contributed significantly to the popularization of biblical imagery. See discussions in Albert Blankert,“Introduction,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert
et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts;
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 18–26; Christian Tümpel, “Religious History
Painting,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al.
(Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam,
Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 45–54; Christian Tümpel, “Die Ikonographie derAmsterdamer Historienmalerei in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts und die Reformation,”
Jahrbuch des deutschen Bibel-Archivs Hamburg 2 (1980): 127–58; Christian Tümpel, ed., Im Lichte
Rembrandts. Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen Landesmuseum)(Munich, 1994). For the display of biblical paintings in private homes and public spaces, see Gabriël
Pastor, “Biblische Historienbilder im Goldene Zeitalter in Privatbesitz,” in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das
Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst, ed. Christian Tümpel (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen
Landesmuseum) (Munich, 1994), 122–33; and Marloes Huiskamp, “Öffentlicher Unterricht inGeschichte und Moral: Das Alte Testament in Rathäusern und anderen öffentlichen Gebäuden,” in Im
Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst, ed. ChristianTümpel (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster,Westfälischen Landesmuseum) (Munich, 1994), 134–55.
14. Although Calvinism was the official religion of the Dutch Republic, the Dutch were not forced to
become members of the denomination, and adherents of many other sects were tolerated, including not
only Catholics and Jews but also Mennonites (Anabaptists), Lutherans, Socinians, Collegiants, andQuakers. Catholic worship was outlawed in Amsterdam in 1581, but the ban was not actively enforced,
and Catholics continued to practice in secret. See Xander van Eck, Clandestine Splendor: Painting for the
Catholic Church in the Dutch Republic (Zwolle, 2008); and Shelley Perlove and Larry Silver, Rembrandt’s
Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age (University Park, Penn., 2009), 45–61.
15. Christian Tümpel, “Religious History Painting,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit,
Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 52; and Volker Manuth,“Denomination and Iconography: The Choice of Subject Matter in the Biblical Painting of theRembrandt Circle,” Simiolus 22, no. 4 (1993–94): 235–52.
16. Gabriël Pastor notes how, within the private space of the home, people could have understood andinterpreted biblical themes in a variety of ways outside of their religious convictions. Other factors thatwould have contributed to their understanding of religious subject matter included education,
intellectual interests, and social and personal backgrounds. For further discussion, see Gabriël Pastor,“Biblische Historienbilder im Goldene Zeitalter in Privatbesitz,” in Im Lichte Rembrandts: Das Alte
Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst, ed. Christian Tümpel (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,
Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum; Münster, Westfälischen Landesmuseum)(Munich, 1994), 122–33; John Michael Montias, “Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam:
An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions,” in Art in History, History in Art: Studies in SeventeenthCentury Dutch Culture, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries (Chicago, 1991), 331–72; and John
Michael Montias, Art at Auction in 17th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2002), passim.
17. The possible early provenance of David and Uriah, for example, which has been long overlooked in thescholarship, provides some insight into these dynamics. A series of auction sales published by John
Michael Montias several decades ago shows the ownership of a painting of “David and Uriah” changing
hands over a short period of time. In the sale of the possessions of Elbert Symonsz. Pool, a butter
merchant in Amsterdam, on 4 December 1620, was a painting described as “a little piece by Lastman ofDavid and Uriah.” What is presumed to be the same painting appears for a second time in the sale of thepossessions of Pieter Claesz. Codde, a ropemaker, also from Amsterdam, on 30 October 1624. Bothmen were members of the Reformed Church, though some members of their families were Roman
Catholic. In the latter sale, the painting is simply described as “David and Uriah” without an attribution.
In both instances, the work appears with a pendant, described in the 1620 sale as “a painting of Bersabe[Bathsheba] by Pijnas,” and in 1624 as “a little painting of Bersabe washing herself.” The paintings soldas a pair in the respective sales of 1620 and 1624 to members of the sellers’ families. The prices theyfetched in each sale were so similar that the two auction lists must refer to the same painting.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine whether the “David and Uriah” in the possession of Pool or
Codde can be identified with the Leiden Collection painting or Lastman’s other version of this subject
from 1611, now in Detroit (see fig 4). No painting of Bathsheba by Jan or Jacob Pynas is known.
Montias points out that it would have been unusual for men of Pool or Codde’s social standing to own
history paintings by artists of the caliber of Lastman and Pynas, and he suggests that their ownership ofthese works may have been the result of a personal connection with the artist. Pieter Claesz. Codde hadserved as a witness at the signing of the marriage contract of the Roman Catholic jeweler Zeger
Pietersz., Lastman’s brother, on 1 September 1601, with the artist present. However, the number ofLastman’s paintings that subsequently appear in the inventories of members of the merchant class inAmsterdam reflects a wealthier and more intellectual class of liefhebbers that was beginning to take© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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shape in the city. In this light, it seems less surprising that either Pool or Codde would have been earlyowners of the painting. See further discussion below and in John Michael Montias, “Trois ventes detableaux aux enchères à Amsterdam vers 1620,” in Curiosité: Études d’histoire de l’art en l’honneurd’Antoine Schnapper, ed. Olivier Bonfait (Paris, 1998), 285–95; John Michael Montias, Art at Auction in
17th Century Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2002), 226–33; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman:
Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken
Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 128–33.
18. The lack of documentation about Lastman’s early patrons or commissions makes it difficult to assess
fully the relationship between the iconography of his paintings and the religious convictions of his
patrons. The only two known commissions of Lastman’s concern three no longer extant scenes from theLife of Christ, which were executed for the Oratory at Frederiksborg Castle for the Danish king,Christian IV (Lastman was selected along with several other history painters, including Adriaen van
Nieulandt and Jan Pynas, to complete the series of 23 paintings), in 1619, and a painting of Jonah andthe Whale (Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast) for an Amsterdam merchant, Isaac Bodens, in 1621.
There is no indication that Lastman worked exclusively for one religious denomination, and like manyof his contemporaries, he must have taken advantage of—and adapted to—the wealthy clientele andburgeoning art market in Amsterdam (see additional discussion in note 17 and further below). For
discussion of Lastman’s patrons, see Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk:
Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie(Petersberg, 2011), 44–45, 66, 133–39.
19. Christian Tümpel, ed., Het Oude testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat.
Amsterdam, Joods Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum) (Zwolle, 1991), 10–13.
20. These artists have long been referred to as the “Pre-Rembrandtists” because of their significance asRembrandt’s “precursors,” but this nomenclature does not accurately reflect their contribution toseventeenth-century painting. See Astrid Tümpel, ed., The Pre-Rembrandtists (Exh. cat., Sacramento,
E.B. Crocker Art Gallery) (Sacramento, 1974); Christian Tümpel, “The Iconography of the PreRembrandtists,” in The Pre-Rembrandtists, ed. Astrid Tümpel (Exh. cat., Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art
Gallery) (Sacramento, 1974), 127–50; and Astrid Tümpel, “The Pre-Rembrandtists,” in Gods, Saints andHeroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed., Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C.,
National Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington,
D.C., 1980), 123–35. Eric Jan Sluijter has recently discussed how Lastman, by painting in a novel styleand developing a new type of biblical painting, encouraged a group of likeminded artists to gather
around him and follow his approach. He describes this notion as “clustering,” by which artists “cluster”
around a successful painter and give shape to a distinctive specialization in painting. He credits Lastman
with spurring the tradition of history painting in Amsterdam, which later came to include Rembrandt
and his pupils. Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650(Amsterdam, 2017), 14–19.
21. This tradition was largely defined by a predilection to depict Old Testament subject matter. See© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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Christian Tümpel, “The Iconography of the Pre-Rembrandtists,” in The Pre-Rembrandtists, ed. Astrid
Tümpel (Exh. cat., Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery) (Sacramento, 1974), 127–50; ChristianTümpel, ed., Het Oude testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Joods
Historisch Museum; Jerusalem, Israel Museum) (Zwolle, 1991), 10–13.
22. For Lastman, see Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn, Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van Rembrandt: The
Man Who Taught Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991);
Martina Sitt, ed., Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten? (Exh. cat. Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle)(Munich, 2006); and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem
kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011).
23. For further discussion of Lastman’s Italian sojourn, which may have included several other cities, see
Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis derWerke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 30–36, 145–54.
Lastman’s period in Venice is documented by the drawn copy (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum) hemade ca. 1603 after Veronese’s Adoration of the Shepherds in the Cappella dei Setaioli der Chiesa dei
Crociferi. While in Rome, Lastman also went on sketching trips in the countryside; see his drawing
View of the Palatinate, 1606 (Private Collection, Germany). In David and Uriah, for example, Amy
Golahny has shown how Lastman incorporated motifs and poses from Michelangelo’s angel in Bologna
and sculpture of Giuliano de’Medici in Florence for the pose of David. See Amy Golahny, “Reflections
on Caravaggio, Lastman, and Rembrandt,” in Culture figurative a confronto tra Fiandre e Italia dal XV
al XVII secolo: Atti del convegno internazionale Nord/Sud: Ricezioni fiamminghe al di qua delle Alpi:
Prospettive di studio e indagini tecniche, ed. Anna De Floriani and Maria Clelia Galassi (Milan, 2008),
157–65.
24. For Lastman’s relationship to Caravaggio, Bril, and Elsheimer, see Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter
Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus derantiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 33, 45–47, 149, 152–53, and 155–62. Seifert points
out that Elsheimer had achieved “monumentality in a miniature format” in his works, which wereconceived with a close eye to their textual sources, qualities that would be important for Lastman’s
painting.
25. Astrid Tümpel, ed., The Pre-Rembrandtists (Exh. cat., Sacramento, E.B. Crocker Art Gallery)(Sacramento, 1974), 132–38, 142–46; Christian Tümpel, “Die Ikonographie der Amsterdamer
Historienmalerei in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts und die Reformation,” Jahrbuch desdeutschen Bibel-Archivs Hamburg 2 (1980): 135–40, 146–52; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman:
Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken
Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 162–76.
26. Lastman’s vast literary interests have been widely recognized. Upon his death in 1633, the artist’s library
contained around 150 books, an exceptional number for the time. Although the titles were not indicatedin the inventory, Golahny and Seifert have suggested a probable list of ancient and contemporary texts
based on Lastman’s works and likely education in a Latin school, where he would have first encountered© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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this wide range of ancient texts. With the exception of Euripides, Herodotus, and Lucian, nearly all of
the other ancient texts would have been available in Dutch translation. See Amy Golahny, Rembrandt’s
Reading: The Artist’s Bookshelf of Ancient Poetry and History (Amsterdam, 2003), 71; Christian T.
Seifert, “Pieter Lastman, Constrijcken history Schilder tot Amsterdam—kunstreicher Historienmaler zu
Amsterdam,” in Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt (Exh. cat. Hamburg,
Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006), 17; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben
und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie undHistorie (Petersberg, 2011), 71–72, 97–111, 119–21.
27. Kurt Bauch first called Lastman’s tendency for exacting historical and narrative details a “monströse
Sachlichkeit.” See the discussion in Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk:
Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie(Petersberg, 2011), 139–44.
28. Written in 1618, though only published in 1620, Gerbier’s poem was a tribute to Hendrick Goltzius andincluded an imagined procession of the most famous artists gathered to celebrate him. Lastman was
singled out for high praise in Gerbier’s lines: “Lastman, d’eer d’Amstels voet, die wil ick hier aen voeghen,
Op wiens Const ‘tweeld’ rigst oogh moest sterren met genoege Liefhebbers sit vry neer, en met aendacht eenssiet Oft niet der Consten mergh Pictura u dar biet.” By the time Gerbier composed the poem, Lastman
was already well known in the Netherlands. See Otto Hirschmann, “Balthasar Gerbiers eer ende ClaeghtDight ter eeren van Henricus Goltius,” Oud Holland 38 (1920): 104–25; David Freedberg, “Fame,
Convention and Insight: On the Relevance of Fornebergh and Gerbier,” in The Ringling Museum of Art
Journal: Papers Presented at the International Rubens Symposium, 1982 (1983): 236–59; and ChristianTico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen Verzeichnis der Werke mit
Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 65–67. For discussion of the early
provenance of Lastman’s painting, see note 17.
29. Christian Tümpel, “Religious History Painting,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of
Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Detroit,
Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 48; Astrid Tümpel andPeter Schatborn, Pieter Lastman: leermeester van Rembrandt: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt (Exh.
cat. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991); and Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman:
Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S.
Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010):
179–202.
30. David’s letter commanded that Uriah be placed on the front lines of battle “so that he may be struck
down and die” (2 Samuel 11:15).
31. Infrared imaging revealed that David originally looked Uriah in the eye. Lastman made thiscompositional and narrative change. See the entry and technical summary in this catalogue.
32. Holbein’s woodcut was influential for a number of late sixteenth-century Bibles. See Erika Michael,“The Iconographic History of Hans Holbein the Younger’s Icones and Their Reception in the Later© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Sixteenth Century,” Harvard Library Bulletin 3, no. 3 (1992): 28–47. For Holbein’s woodcut and otherillustrations of this subject, see Bart Rosier, The Bible in Print: Netherlandish Bible Illustration in the
Sixteenth Century (Leiden, 1997), 1: 37, 65; 2: fig. 275, 282. In 1638, Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77)
executed a more elaborate print of David giving the letter to Uriah, after a drawing by Holbein.
33. Bart Rosier, The Bible in Print: Netherlandish Bible Illustration in the Sixteenth Century (Leiden, 1997), 2:
fig. 297. At least one painting of the subject, from ca. 1560 by Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527–ca.
1606) and Gilles Mostart (1528–1598), is known, as is an anonymous tapestry in the Musée de laRenaissance, Paris. For an overview of the painting’s iconographic precedents, see Amy Golahny,“Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and 1619,” in The Primacy of the
Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry Silver, ed. Taylor Cashion, Henry
Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 500–514.
34. For discussion of King David, including John Calvin’s commentary on his moral shortcomings that led
to “self-awareness and deep feelings that provided him with true knowledge of the heart,” see Shelley
Perlove and Larry Silver, Rembrandt’s Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age (University
Park, Penn., 2009), 120–26. For an alternative reading of the painting, which takes into account its
potential political dimension, see the entry in this catalogue.
35. Aristotle, Poetics XI: 1–4, cited in Samuel Henry Butcher, Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, witha Critical Text and Translation of ‘The Poetics’ (New York, 1951), 41. Albert Blankert first argued thatthe concept of peripeteia was an important narrative tool used by Ferdinand Bol and within Rembrandt’s
larger circle. He called attention to these artists’ preference for representing moments of revelation or
the appearance of the divine. Amy Golahny and Eric Jan Sluijter have taken up more recent andnuanced discussions of the use of this term in the work of Lastman and Rembrandt, which have helped
to shape my discussion. See Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), Rembrandt’s Pupil(Doornspijk, 1982), 34–36; Albert Blankert, “Introduction,” in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting
in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Albert Blankert et al. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art;
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Washington, D.C., 1980), 26; Amy
Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern
Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of
Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 179–202; Eric Jan Sluijter, “Rembrandt’s Portrayal of the Passions and Vondel’s‘staetveranderinge,’” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, eds. Stephanie S.
Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 283–301.
For discussion of peripeteia in the context of depictions of Cimon and Pero (or Roman Charity) in theseventeenth century, see Michiko Fukaya, “Aristotelian Peripeteia? The Backward Gaze in Depictions ofCimon and Pero in the Early Seventeenth-Century Netherlands,” in Aspects of Narrative in Art History:
Proceedings of the International Workshop for Young Researchers, Held at the Graduate School of Letters,
Kyoto University, Kyoto, 2–3 December 2013, ed. Kayo Hirakawa (Kyoto, 2014), 47–60.
36. When recognition is combined with reversal, as Aristotle stated, it “will produce either pity or fear; andactions producing these effects are those which, by our definition, Tragedy represents.” Aristotle, Poetics© 2024 The Leiden Collection

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XI: 1–4, cited in Samuel Henry Butcher, Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, with a Critical Text
and Translation of ‘The Poetics’ (New York, 1951), 41.
37. Vondel first translated this term in the preface to his play Jephta of 1640/59. It would become a key
concept of his late tragedies. See Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The
Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg,
Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 181–83. Golahny has suggested that
Lastman’s paintings may have impacted Vondel himself.
38. Vondel, as quoted in Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in theArts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands
Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 183n8.
39. A number of Lastman’s works indicate that he enjoyed a long engagement with contemporary theater in
Amsterdam, often combining ancient sources with seventeenth-century drama. For Lastman’s
relationship to contemporary theater, see Kurt Bauch, Der frühe Rembrandt und seine Zeit, Studien zur
geschichtlichen Bedeutung seines Frühstils (Berlin, 1960), 68–75; Christian Tümpel, “The Iconography of
the Pre-Rembrandtists,” in The Pre-Rembrandtists, ed. Astrid Tümpel (Exh. cat. Sacramento, E.B.
Crocker Art Gallery) (Sacramento, 1974), 146; Christian Tico Seifert, “Pieter Lastman, Constrijcken
history Schilder tot Amsterdam—kunstreicher Historienmaler zu Amsterdam,” in Pieter Lastman: in
Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt (Exh. cat. Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006):
16–17; and Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen
Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 111–17.
Lastman also knew a number of Amsterdam playwrights personally, including Gerbrand Adriaensz
Bredero (1585–1618) and Joost von den Vondel.
40. Heinsius’s translation and commentaries were well known across Europe and had a significant impact oncontemporaries such as Vondel and Hugo Grotius. Daniel Heinsius, De Tragoediae constitutione: On Plotin Tragedy, trans. Paul R. Sellin and John J. McManmon (Northridge, 1971).
41. Aristotle lists the different modes of recognition that relate to tragedy, including from the token, orinanimate object, which was the least inventive, to memory, reasoning, and so forth, but he states thatthe best kind of recognition derives from the events themselves. Both Aristotle and Heinsius cite ancientnarratives in which these modes of recognition may be observed, such as Iphigenia recognizing Orestes
and Pylades or Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey. Aristotle, Poetics XVI, cited in Samuel Henry Butcher,
Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, with a Critical Text and Translation of ‘The Poetics’ (New York,
1951), 57–61; and Daniel Heinsius, De Tragoediae constitutione: On Plot in Tragedy, trans. Paul R. Sellin
and John J. McManmon (Northridge, 1971), chapter 6, 39–42.
42. On multiple occasions, Lastman referred to ancient narrative examples mentioned by Heinsius, such as
in Iphigenia Recognizing Orestes and Pylades, 1614 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and Ulysses Meeting
Nausicaa, 1619 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). For Lastman’s use of Heinsius, see Amy Golahny, “Pieter
Lastman: Moments of Recognition,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed.
Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden,© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
Page 20 of 222010): 183; Christian Tico Seifert, Pieter Lastman: Studien zu Leben und Werk: Mit einem kritischen
Verzeichnis der Werke mit Themen aus der antiken Mythologie und Historie (Petersberg, 2011), 78, 84,296; Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and 1619,”
in The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry Silver, ed. Taylor
Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 505–6.
43. Christian Tümpel, “Die Rezeption der Jüdischen Altertümer des Flavius Josephus in den holländischen
Historiendarstellungen des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Wort und Bild in der niederländischen Kunst und
Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. Herman Vekeman and Justus Müller-Hofstede (Erfstadt,
1984); and Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn, Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van Rembrandt: The Man
Who Taught Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991), 108–9.
44. Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and 1619,” in
The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry Silver, ed. Taylor
Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 509, suggests that another source
may still come to light to explain Lastman’s inclusion of the scribe, whether another text or evidence ofa Latin school play that he may have seen.
45. The helmet is a parade burgonet all’antica, which was made by Filippo Negroli (ca. 1510–1579) in
Milan sometime around the early 1530s. Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) acquired the helmet in 1628,
but not before it had been seen and copied by several artists in Amsterdam. Jeremy Wood characterized
Lastman’s representation of the helmet in David and Uriah as a “free version.” See Jeremy Wood,
Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. Part 26, Copies and Adaptations from Renaissance and Later
Artists, Italian Artists. Vol. 3, Artists Working in Central Italy and France (London, 2011), 1: 399–400,
no. 247.
46. Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman’s Paintings of David’s Death Sentence for Uriah, 1611 and 1619,” in
The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, Essays in Honor of Larry Silver, ed. Taylor
Cashion, Henry Luttikhuizen, and Ashley D. West (Leiden, 2017), 500–514.
47. Lastman revised his approach to the depiction of historical subjects on other occasions. For instance, hedepicted the story of Ulysses Meeting Nausicaa in 1609 (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig)
and again in 1619 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich).
48. Alan Chong, ed., Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629–1631 (Exh. cat.
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) (Zwolle, 2000), appendix, 135–36. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
made the latter observation about Huygens’s statement in Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Jan Lievens:
Bringing New Light to an Old Master,” in Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered, ed. Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art
Museum; Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis) (New Haven, 2008), 10. Huygens’s praise forRembrandt’s painting also distinguished him from Lievens, who, Huygens believed, was better suited topainting on a large scale.
49. For some discussion of this topic, see, Wolfgang Stechow, “Some Observations on Lastman andRembrandt,” Oud Holland 84, nos. 2–3 (1969): 148–62; Amy Golahny, “Pieter Lastman: Moments of© 2024 The Leiden Collection

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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Recognition,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey andHerman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 196–98.
50. This may have been because Lastman’s own understanding of how to paint a history painting had
evolved by the time Rembrandt arrived in his studio. Lievens’s and Rembrandt’s training with Lastman
would have also included an introduction to graphic traditions and a range of ancient and literarysources. See, for example, Christian Tümpel, “Pieter Lastman and Rembrandt,” in Pieter Lastman:
Leermeester van Rembrandt: The Man Who Taught Rembrandt, ed. Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn(Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis) (Zwolle, 1991), 54–84. For Rembrandt’s depictionsof the passions, especially in his self-portraits, see H. Perry Chapman, “Reclaiming the Inner
Rembrandt: Passion and the Early Self-Portraits,” in The Passions in the Arts of the Early Modern
Netherlands, ed. Stephanie S. Dickey and Herman Roodenburg, Netherlands Yearbook for History of
Art 60 (Leiden, 2010): 232–61.
51. Alan Chong, ed., Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629–1631. (Exh. cat.
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) (Zwolle, 2000), appendix, 135–36.
52. There was a “Lastman revival” in Amsterdam in the mid-1630s at the time of the master’s death, andRembrandt continued to be inspired by his work. He made a number of copies after Lastman’s works
and painted his own versions of certain subjects: Pieter Lastman, The Expulsion of Hagar, 1612
(Hamburger Kunsthalle) / Rembrandt, The Expulsion of Hagar, 1637, etching and drypoint (Museum het
Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam); Pieter Lastman, Susanna and the Elders, 1614 (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) /Rembrandt after Pieter Lastman, Susanna and the Elders, ca. 1637, red chalk (Kupferstichkabinett,
Berlin); Pieter Lastman, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, 1614 (present whereabouts unknown) /Rembrandt after Pieter Lastman, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, ca. 1637, red chalk (Musée Bonnat,
Bayonne); and Pieter Lastman, Joseph Distributing Corn in Egypt, 1612 (National Gallery of Ireland,
Dublin) / Rembrandt after Pieter Lastman, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, black chalk (Graphische
Sammlung Albertina, Vienna). Thus, Lastman’s ideas continued in Rembrandt’s own teaching andpractice well beyond his training with the master in 1625. For further discussion, see Christian Tümpel,“Pieter Lastman and Rembrandt,” in Pieter Lastman: Leermeester van Rembrandt: The Man Who Taught
Rembrandt, ed. Astrid Tümpel and Peter Schatborn (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Museum het Rembrandthuis)(Zwolle, 1991), 65–84; Martina Sitt, “Pieter Lastman und Rembrandt—von der stummen Sprache desKörpers zur Verdichtung von Emotion,” in Pieter Lastman: In Rembrandts Schatten?, ed. Martina Sitt
(Exh. cat. Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle) (Munich, 2006), 72–85.
53. Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680), Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 34–36.
54. Lastman depicted episodes in the life of Hagar on several occasions: The Dismissal of Hagar, 1612
(Hamburger Kunsthalle); Hagar and the Angel, 1614 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art); and Hagar
and the Angel in the Desert, 1621 (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem). Rembrandt treated the subject in a
drawing from around 1650: The Angel Appears to Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness, reed pen withtouches of opaque white (Hamburger Kunsthalle). He depicted “Hagar’s Dismissal” in several drawingsand etchings in the late 1630s and into the 1650s. For example: Rembrandt, Abraham Casting Out Hagar© 2024 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Pieter Lastman’s David and Uriah: Storytelling and the Passions
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and Ishmael, 1637, etching and drypoint (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
55. See the entry in this catalogue.
56. See the entry in this catalogue.
57. Vondel expressed this in a poem that he wrote on Thomas de Keyser’s portrait of Lastman, which is now
lost. Vondel compared Lastman not only to Apelles, but also to Rubens. Joost van den Vondel, “Opd’afbeeldinge van Peter Lastman, den Apelles onzer eeuwe,” in Hollantsch Parnas, of verscheide
gedichten, ed. T. van Domselaar (Amsterdam, 1660), 151.

© 2024 The Leiden Collection