Bathseba in the Bath Receiving the Letter from King David
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 49 x 63 cm h x w x d: Ram 63 x 77 x 5 cm
Inventory numberNM 1053
AcqusitionPurchase 1868
Other titlesTitle (sv): Batseba vid badet mottager brevet från kung David Title (en): Bathseba in the Bath Receiving the Letter from King David
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 3: Technical notes: The painting’s support is an oak panel (±0.5–0.7 mm thick), constructed of two horizontal boards with horizontal grain. Dendrochronological examination and analysis have determined a felling date for the tree between c. 1613 and 1623. The wood originates from the Baltic region. Under the assumption of a median of 15 sapwood rings and a minimum of 2 years for seasoning of the wood, the most plausible date for use of the panel would be 1621 or later. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1924. Provenance: Purchased in 1868. Bibliography: Göthe 1887, p. 222 (as Johann Rottenhammer and Jan Brueghel I?); Göthe 1893, p. 273; Göthe 1910, p. 299; Peltzer 1916, p. 348 no. 66 (as Johann Rottenhammer, the landscape in the Manner of Jan Brueghel I); NM Cat. 1958, p. 174 (as Johann Rottenhammer and Jan Brueghel I?); NM Cat. 1990, p. 313 (as manner of Johann Rottenhammer) The painting depicts the Biblical story of King David and Bathsheba (II Sam.11:2–17). One evening while he walked on the roof of his palace David saw below him a beautiful woman bathing. This was Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, who was then away on service in David’s army. In an act of seigniorial arrogance he had her brought to the palace and made love to her. She became pregnant as a consequence. David sent Uriah away to die on the battlefield, after which he was then able to marry Bathsheba. The beautiful Bathsheba is depicted at her toilet as a messenger arrives with a letter from King David, who is shown in the background spying on her from the roof terrace of his palace. This painting entered the collection as a work of the German painter Johann Rottenhammer, a native of Munich who settled in Venice after a brief sojourn in Rome (1593–1594), possibly with Jan Brueghel I. The picture can be associated more correctly with the work of Antwerp history painter Hendrick van Balen I, working in collaboration with an artist from the studio of Jan Brueghel I. A nearly identical same-size copy of the present painting (it differs only in the rabbits in the foreground on the right), possibly an autograph replica, is in the collection of the Earl of Bradford at Weston Park.1 Small differences between the two paintings suggest that the panel in Stockholm was the “principael” (i.e. the original, or first version). Van Balen collaborated frequently with Jan Brueghel I, his neighbour in the Lange Nieuwstraat at Antwerp, from at least 1604 until the latter’s death in 1625. In paintings jointly executed by the two artists, Van Balen painted the figures and Brueghel contributed the landscape background and still life elements. After his friend’s death, Van Balen continued his collaboration with his son Jan Brueghel II, who took over his father’s studio in 1625. In the present painting, the hand of Jan II can possibly be recognized in the gardens surrounding King David’s palace with the finely detailed rendering of the flora and fauna in the foreground. The shallow pool encircled by a balustrade and the elaborate fountain decorated by a putto straddling a dolphin are somewhat reminiscent of the garden architecture in the Venus at Her Bath (present whereabouts unknown), a collaborative piece of c. 1625 ascribed to Van Balen and Jan Brueghel II.2 Van Balen’s fleshy, solid and somewhat stiffly posed figures added to the garden setting of the present painting can be compared to works from the last third of his career. The figure type represented by Bathsheba can, for example, be compared to the personification of the element of “Earth’ in his late Allegory of Earth and Water at Potsdam (Schloss Sanssouci, Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten, Bildergalerie). 3 The Stockholm painting can be dated, on the basis of style, to the mid- to late 1620s, a date supported by the recent dendrochronological examination of the panel (see Technical Notes). CF 1 Oil on wood, 47 x 63.5 cm, Weston Park (Shropshire), Coll. Earl of Bradford; see a photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague (as Hendrick van Balen I). Not listed in Werche 2004. 2 Oil on wood, 60 x 93 cm; see Ertz 1984, pp. 356–357 no. 191, illus. (as follower of Hendrick van Balen I, the landscape by Jan Brueghel II, 1640s); and Werche 2004, p. 181, illus. (as Hendrick van Balen I, the landscape by Jan Brueghel II, c. 1625). 3 Oil on wood, 61.5 x 94 cm, Potsdam, Schloss Sanssouci, Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten, Bildergalerie, inv. no. GK I 7760; see Ertz 1984, pp. 69, 367 no. 203, illus. (as Hendrick van Balen I, the landscape by Jan Brueghel II, probably late 1620s); Werche 2004, p. 190 no. A 133, illus. (c.1625/1632). But cf. also the figure of Venus in an earlier work such as the Allegory of Fertility at Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 22; for which see Werche 2004, p. 211 no. A 185, illus. [End]
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword