Judah and Tamar
Arent de Gelder(Dordrecht 1645 – 1727 Dordrecht)

ca. 1680–85
oil on canvas
111 x 103.1 cm
AG-100© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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How to cite
Manuth, Volker. “Judah and Tamar” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 2nd ed. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017–20. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/judah-and-tamar/ (archived May2020).
A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive ismanaged by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrativeoccurs.

Arent de Gelder, perhaps more than any other Rembrandt pupil, shared hisComparative Figuresmaster’s profound interest in the human aspect of biblical stories. Most of
De Gelder’s history paintings focus on the private interaction of a few largescale figures where psychological relationships rather than narrativegestures are emphasized. Although De Gelder repeatedly portrayed thetender warmth of the holy family in his paintings, he was also fascinated withthe human frailties of biblical characters that underlie and help explain theiractions. In this instance, he has focused on the sexual exchange between
Judah and his stepdaughter Tamar, disguised as a harlot, bringing theviewer so close to this indecent encounter that one can almost feel thephysical intensity of their relationship.

Fig 1. Maarten van Heemskerck,
Judah and Tamar, 1532, oil oncanvas, 138 x 163 cm, formerly
Berlin, Schloss Grunewald (nowlost)

The story that inspired De Gelder’s painting occurs in chapter 38 of the bookof Genesis. There it is told how Judah, the fourth son of Jacob and Leah,
married off the eldest of his three sons, Er, to Tamar. The marriage remained
childless, for “Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord; andthe Lord slew him” (Genesis 38:7). After Er’s death, his brother Onan—now
bound by the Law of Levirate to marry Tamar—refused to procreate in his
brother’s place and was likewise slain by God (Genesis 38:9–10). After thestill-childless Tamar was prevented by Judah from marrying his youngest
son, Shelah, and Judah’s wife had died, Tamar—dressed as aFig 2. Ferdinand Bol, Judah andTamar, 1644, oil on canvas,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv.
17.3268, Photograph ©2017
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

prostitute—seduced her unsuspecting father-in-law. “When Judah saw her,
he thought her to be a harlot; because she had covered her face” (Genesis38:15). As payment, Judah promised Tamar a kid from his flock and gave© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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her three pledges. “And he said, what pledge shall I give thee? And she
said, Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff that is in thine hand. And hegave it her, and came in unto her, and she conceived by him” (Genesis
38:18). When her pregnancy was discovered, Tamar was accused of harlotry
and condemned, also by Judah, to death by burning. Only when she cameforth with the pledges did Judah admit his guilt and she was spared. The
offspring produced by Tamar and her father-in-law were the twins Pharezand Zarah.
The special meaning to Christianity of the story of Judah and Tamar lies in
the fact that the “indecent relationship” between the two produced Pharez
who, according to Matthew 1:3 (see also Luke 3:33), was a forefather ofDavid and therefore an ancestor of Christ. Tamar thus appears in thegenealogical tree as the progenitrix of the royal house from which—in addition
to David and Solomon—Christ was born. Tamar’s significance for the
genealogy of Christ therefore explains her important role in patristic literatureand later biblical exegesis. For example, Tamar is equated with the Church(ekklesia), which gave twins to Judah, son of the patriarch Jacob. In otherreadings, Judah’s surrendering of his staff and signet to Tamar is interpreted
as a reference to Christ, who gave the Church his treasures: the seal of faithand belief in the Cross.[1] Nonetheless, pictorial representations of the storyof Judah and Tamar are rare in medieval art.[2] Even series of prints from thelate Middle Ages and Renaissance that center on representations of men
who were the victims of crafty women—and certainly Judah could countamong them—do not include this couple.[3]Of particular importance to the development of the theme in late medieval art
are two series of prints by Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574). Each of
the four etchings/engravings that comprise each set shows a different scene,with the depiction of the handing over of the pledges at the side of the road
forming the prelude to the story.[4] As early as 1532, Van Heemskerck had
portrayed this episode in what was probably the earliest known large-format
painting, which hung in Jagdschloss Grunewald in Berlin until 1945 but
subsequently disappeared (fig 1).[5] His painting contains certain motifs thatfind an echo in De Gelder’s work: the proximity to the viewer of the figures,
Tamar’s seductive hand on her father-in-law’s chin, and the slung legs ofthe couple, a motif that stresses the sexual nature of the encounter.[6] Mostof the examples produced in the Northern Netherlands in the seventeenth
century also show the meeting of Judah and Tamar on the road and thehanding over of the pledges (Genesis 38:14–18).[7] These depictions,however, are mostly paintings with small figures, usually with a luxuriant© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Judah and Tamar
Page 4 of 8landscapeinthebackground.[8]Surprisingly,

nofirmly

attributedrepresentation of the theme is known by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–69), withwhom De Gelder studied.[9] Before De Gelder, the only Rembrandt pupil totreat this subject was Ferdinand Bol (1616–80), who produced a large
painting with three-quarter-length figures in 1644 (fig 2).[10]The story of Judah and Tamar belongs, along with scenes from the book ofEsther, to the Old Testament events De Gelder most frequently depicted. Inaddition to the present work, De Gelder painted at least five other versions ofthis theme.[11] A striking feature of the painting in the Leiden Collection is thefact that, although Tamar wears a veil as described in the Bible (Genesis38:15), the veil is lifted, whereas according to scripture it was precisely
Tamar’s covered face that prevented Judah from recognizing her. De Gelder
depicted her fully veiled in the two versions in private collections and the one
in the Mauritshuis.[12] In this context, it is interesting to note what
contemporary theologians had to say about the veil motif. For example, theUtrecht theologian Franciscus Burmans (Burmanus) wrote in 1668 thatTamar wore a veil only so that she would not be recognized, because it was
not whores but respectable women who covered their faces in public out ofmodesty.[13]The version in the Leiden Collection differs from the other versions of thetheme in the less drastic manner of the couple’s advances. Even though anumber of motifs—Judah’s embrace of Tamar, each of them touching theother’s chin, and the phallic shape of the staff visible between Judah’slegs—clearly refer to the sexual character of the scene, here De Gelder hasdepicted it with more restraint and delicacy than in his other versions of thetheme. Similarly, the two appear to differ less in age than in the version inAgnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston,[14] which is dated to 1681 andtones down the aspect of the “unequal lovers.” It was this very theme of the“unequal couple” that, since the sixteenth century, had become firmly
established as a subject in literature and art, providing opportunities formoralizing and mockery. Both stylistically and with respect to the color
scheme, which is dominated by brown, green, and red tones, this painting
can be dated to the first half of the 1680s.

- Volker Manuth, 2017

© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Judah and Tamar
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1. For the interpretation of Genesis 38 in the writings of the church fathers and other medieval
theologians, see Hans Martin von Erffa, Ikonologie der Genesis: Die christlichen Bildthemenaus dem Alten Testament und ihre Quellen, 2 vols. (Munich, 1995), 2: 438–45, esp. 442.
2. See Reiner Haussherr, “Juda und Thamar,” in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, ed.
Engelbert Kirschbaum, 8 vols. (Rome, 1968–76), 2: 443.
3. See Yvonne Bleyerveld, Hoe bedriechelijck dat die vrouwen zijn: Vrouwenlisten in debeeldende kunst in de Nederlanden circa 1350–1650 (Leiden, 2000), 247–48.
4. For the first series of prints, see Friedrich Wilhelm Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings,Engravings, and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700, 72 vols. (Amsterdam, 1949–2010), 4: 228, nos.
58–62; 8: 229, nos. 2–4, and Wouter Kloek, et al., Kunst voor de beeldenstorm:
Noordnederlandse kunst 1525–1580 (Exh. cat. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam,1986), 260, no. 142.1–4 (ill.); for the other series of prints, see Friedrich Wilhelm
Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, ca. 1450–1700, 72 vols.
(Amsterdam, 1949–2010), 4: 101, nos. 31–34; 8: 246, nos. 423–26, and Wouter Kloek, et al.,Kunst voor de beeldenstorm: Noordnederlandse kunst 1525–1580 (Exh. cat. Amsterdam,Rijksmuseum) (Amsterdam, 1986), 324, 203.1–4 (ill.).
5. Rainald Grosshans, Maerten van Heemskerck: Die Gemälde (Berlin, 1980), no. 14 (ill.).
6. See Leo Steinberg, “Michelangelo’s Florentine Pietà: The Missing Leg,” Art Bulletin 50(1968): 343–53. For the motif of the “slung leg” in different contexts, see also Leo Steinberg,“The Metaphors of Love and Birth in Michelangelo’s Pietàs,” in Studies in Erotic Art, ed.
Theodore Bowie and Cornelia V. Christenson (New York, 1970), 240–42.
7. On the iconography of the subject in Netherlandish painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, see Gina Strumwasser, “Heroes, Heroines, and Heroic Tales from the Old
Testament: An Iconographic Analysis of the Most Frequently Represented Old Testament
Subjects in Netherlandish Painting, ca. 1430–1570” (PhD diss. University of California, LosAngeles, 1979), 129–31, and Volker Manuth, “Ikonographische Studien zu den Historien desAlten Testaments bei Rembrandt und seiner frühen Amsterdamer Schule: Mit einem Katalog
der biblischen Gemälde des Jan Victors” (PhD diss. Freie Universität Berlin, 1987), 101–17.
8. See, for example, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout’s painting of 1645 in the Pushkin Museum inMoscow (Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. [Landau and Pfalz,1983–94], 2: no. 401 [ill.], and, more recently, Marina Senenko, The Pushkin Museum of Fine
Arts: Collection of Dutch Paintings: XVII–XIX Centuries [Moscow, 2009], 142, no. 406). See
also the related drawing in the Albertina in Vienna (Werner Sumowski, Drawings of theRembrandt School, ed. and trans. Walter L. Strauss 10 vols. [New York, 1979–92], 3: no. 610© 2020 The Leiden Collection

Judah and Tamar
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9. A drawing in the collection of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (pen andbrown ink and brown washes, 130 x 155 mm, inv. no. R9; Benesch A113) with a depiction ofthe turbaned Judah sitting next to the veiled Tamar in front of trees and bushes, formerly
attributed to Rembrandt, has recently been attributed to his pupil Willem Drost (1633–59); see
Werner Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, ed. and trans. Walter L. Struass, 10vols. (New York, 1979–), 3: no. 560x (ill.).
10. See Albert Blankert, Ferdinand Bol (1616–1680): Rembrandt’s Pupil (Doornspijk, 1982), 30,92, no. 7.
11. The other versions are: (1) Private collection, The Netherlands; see Werner Sumowski,Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–95), 2: no. 728 (ill.);
Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727 (Doornspijk, 1994),
no. 11. (2) Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen, Mauritshuis, The Hague; see Sumowski, 2: no.
758 (ill.); Von Moltke, no. 12 (ill.). (3) The Agnes Etherington Art Centre (from the BaderCollection), Kingston, Ontario; see Sumowski, 2: no. 729 (ill.); Von Moltke, no. 13 (ill.); andDavid DeWitt, The Bader Collection: Dutch and Flemish Paintings (Exh. cat. Kingston,Ontario, The Agnes Etherington Art Centre) (Kingston, 2008), no. 82 (ill.). (4) Gemäldegalerie
der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna; see Werner Sumowski, Gemälde derRembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–95), 2: no. 725 (ill., as “Boas andRuth”); Renate Trnek, Die holländischen Gemälde des 17. Jahrhunderts in derGemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Vienna, 1992), no. 47 (ill., as“Judah and Tamar?”); and Von Moltke, no. 2 (ill., as “Lot and His Daughters”). (5) Present
whereabouts unknown (formerly Wetzlar Collection, Amsterdam); see Sumowski, 2:1158 n.
28.
12. Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen, Mauritshuis, The Hague; see Werner Sumowski,Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–95), 2: no. 758 (ill.);
Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727 (Doornspijk, 1994),
no. 12 (ill.).
13. See Franciscus Burmans, De Wet ende Getuigenisse, ofte Uitlegginge ende Btragtinge vande verborgentheden ende voornaamste saken des Wets, ofte boeken Mosis (Utrecht, 1668),
264; Volker Manuth in Dirck Bijker et al., eds., Arent de Gelder (1645–1727), Rembrandts
laatste leerling (Exh. cat. Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum; Cologne, Wallraf-RichartzMuseum) (Ghent, 1998), 142 nn. 5 and 6.
14. The Agnes Etherington Art Centre (from the Bader Collection), Kingston, Ontario; see Werner
Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, 6 vols. (Landau and Pfalz, 1983–95), 2: no. 729(ill.); Joachim Wolfgang von Moltke, Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727 (Doornspijk,1994), no. 13 (ill.); and David DeWitt, The Bader Collection: Dutch and Flemish Paintings(Exh. cat. Kingston, Ontario, The Agnes Etherington Art Centre) (Kingston, 2008), no. 82 (ill.).
© 2020 The Leiden Collection

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ProvenancePossibly Count Santar, Lisbon, March 1909.
Conde de Magãlhaes, Palace of S. José, Lisbon, and by descent (sale, Christie’s, London, 7
December 2006, no. 25 [Johnny van Haeften, London, 2006]).
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2006.

Exhibition History
Kansas City, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, on loan with the permanent collection,December 2008–December 2009 [lent by the present owner].

References
Lilienfeld, Karl. Arent de Gelder: Sein Leben und seine Kunst. The Hague, 1914, 131–32, no.
14.
Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6 vols. Landau and Pfalz, 1983–94,5: 3101, no. 2090, 3223.
Huys Janssen, Paul, and Werner Sumowski, eds. The Hoogsteder Exhibition of Rembrandt’sAcademy. Exh. cat. The Hague, Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder. Zwolle, 1992, 166 n. 9.
Von Moltke, Joachim Wolfgang. Arent de Gelder, Dordrecht 1645–1727. Doornspijk, 1994,111–12, no. D3, 120, no. L11.

Technical Summary
The support, a single piece of a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric with tacking margins
removed, has been lined. A large square of red lead priming surrounded by narrrow unprimed
borders was revealed along the support reverse when the previous lining was removed. The
unprimed borders indicate the priming was applied while the support was attached to a fourmember stretcher, and the various border widths suggest that the support dimensions areunaltered along the upper edge, are trimmed slightly along the left edge, are trimmed a bit more
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along the lower edge, and are trimmed an unknown amount along the right edge where no borderremains. There is a black stencil, two paper labels, and white chalk along the stretcher and redlead priming along the support reverse but no wax collection seals or import stamps along thesupport, lining, or stretcher reverse.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The paint has been applied with loose,
fluid brushstrokes in thin, smooth, transparent glazes through the background, allowing theunderlayers to show through, and more opaquely through the two figures. Highlights have been
applied in low impasto; areas of detail along Tamar’s proper left sleeve and along the edge of thebrocade and clasp of Judah’s cape, which has fallen to his waist, have been scratched into
glazes of wet paint with the reverse of a brush.[1]No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. The
images and pentimenti reveal minor compositional changes to the position of the back of Judah’s
proper left hand and to the fingers on both of Tamar’s hands.
The painting is unsigned and undated. A false signature that read “Rembrandt f.” was removed
during conservation treatment.
The painting was cleaned, lined, and restored in 2007 and remains in a good state ofpreservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. See Bader Collection version of this subject in which the brocade edge of Judah’s caperemains fastened with a clasp along his collar (digital image provided by Dominique Surh,curator, The Leiden Collection).

© 2020 The Leiden Collection