Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 102:

Technical notes: The painting’s original support is a
single piece of medium-weight, regular, plain weave, singlethreaded
fabric, with a weave count per cm of 12 horizontal
and 11 vertical threads and a selvedge along the bottom
edge. The painting has been lined and is on a non-original
stretcher. The size of the composition was increased at a
later date by c. 1–1.5 cm on all sides by partially flattening
the original, frayed tacking edges. Pronounced cusping is
present along the right and bottom edges.
The preparatory layers consist of a thick, evenly
applied, light-coloured ground, which completely hides
the texture of the fabric support, followed by a yellowish
brown imprimatura, visible in many places due to abrasion
of the paint surface.

Paint was applied thinly in opaque and semi-transparent
layers, with slight impastos in the white and yellow
highlights on the foliage of the trees on the right, the
frothing water in the centre foreground, and the finely
detailed jewellery decorating the turban of one of the
women on the left. Traces of translucent red lake can still
be found in the skirt of the sleeping woman in the left
foreground.

The painting is in poor condition. The paint surface is
heavily abraded overall, in the more thinly painted dark
areas of the landscape, as well as in the larger foreground
figures. Retouching covers flaked losses of the paint and
ground layers along the edges, especially the top and
right edges. A thick layer of discoloured old varnish is
present. Discoloured retouches are visible to the naked
eye, in the foliage of the large trees, the rocks at the
upper left and the soil in the foreground, but also scattered
throughout the foreground figures. The painting
underwent conservation treatment in 1867.

Provenance: Coll. Johan Gabriel Stenbock 1705;
Christina Beata Lillie; Coll. Ulla Sparre 1727; Coll. Carl
Gustaf Tessin 1735, no. 109 (The Gallery no. 44);
Tessin-Fredrik I-Lovisa Ulrika 1749, no. 106; Lovisa
Ulrika 1660, no. 243; Gustav III 1792, no. 139; KM
1795, no. 73; KM 1816, no. 720; KM 1865, no. 720.

Bibliography: Sander I, p. 99, no. 243; Sander II, p.
115, no. 139; NM Cat. 1867, p. 33; Göthe 1887, p. 123;
Göthe 1893, p. 155; NM Cat. 1958, p. 100; NM Cat.
1990, p. 182.
The motif comes from the Old Testament (Exodus 17:
5–7) and the description of Moses smiting water from
the rock.

This painting, which is in extremely bad condition,
can be compared with two works by Victor-Honoré
Janssens in the Koninklijk Museum in Brussels.1 The
depiction of the figures is typical of Janssen as is the
representation of the palm tree and the other vegetation
in the background. His signature has been construed
in many ways but it is evident from other works
as well that the J in his surname can be taken for a G.2
GCB

1 Nos. 305 and 306.
2 See J. de Maere and M.Wabbes 1994, p. 232.[End]

Moses slår vatten ur klippan