Lot 34: Claes Cormelisz. Moeyaert (Durgerdam, nr. Amsterdam 1591-1655 Amsterdam)

God appearing to Abraham in Schechem oil on panel 263/4 x 421/2 in. (68 x 108 cm.) NOTES The picture depicts the story related in Genesis; XII: 5-7, of how God first promised his country to Abraham: 'And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Schechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him'. This is one of three versions of the subject painted by Moeyaert, dating to the second half of the 1630s, the other two being that in Het Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, and that sold, Fischer, Lucerne, 1958. All three derive from the eponymous work by Pieter Lastman in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, but still vary considerably within themselves. Moeyaert presumably revisited the subject for its clear drama, which he conveys most successfully in this, the fullest resolved version. As in Lastman's representation and that in Utrecht, Abraham is shown with his front facing the viewer; here, however, he is also framed by a pyramid arrangement of figures and animals that has the effect of pushing the central group forward, sharply illuminated against the background. The presence of the mounted horseman, acting as a repoussoir, is an innovation absent from Lastman's work and from the Utrecht painting. A later version of this picture, omitting the background landscape, was sold in these Rooms, 24 April 1981, lot 53, as 'C.C. Moeyaert', with provenance recorded as 'The Misses Rous, Col. T. Gore and Sir Herbert Merrett, removed from Cwrt-Yr-Ala House, Glamorgan' (sold œ1,200). SALESROOM NOTICE Please note that additional literature: A. Tmpel, 'Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert', Oud Holland, 88, 1974, no. 1/2, pp. 108 and 248, no. 7, fig. 147, as circa 1639. Dr. Tmpel notes that the picture may be the same as her no. 215 ( ibid., p. 272), formerly in the collection of Hendrik Muilman, Banderheer van Haamstede; sale, Schley and de Vries, Amsterdam, 12 April 1813, lot 109, as c. 69 x 105 cm. (135 florins, with the preceding lot, to Nieuwenhuizen).