Description
The First Passover Feast signed with monogram, dated '1563' and inscribed 'EXODI XII' oil on panel 411/4 x 39 in. (105 x 99 cm.) PROVENANCE with Colnaghi & Eckford, London, by whom sold to Henry Burgh, Cheltenham, at whose sale acquired by George Pearse, Cheltenham, a Major in the Royal Artillery, by June 1869 (according to a note written by him and attached to the reverse). Anon. Sale, Lepke, Berlin, 22 March 1910, lot 49, as Joachim Beuckelaer. Anon. Sale, Frederik Muller, Amsterdam, 25 April 1911, lot 77, as The Monogrammist HB. Dr. Rudolf Berl (1884-1963), an industrialist who lived in the Palais Rudolf Gutmann, Vienna, until 1939. Transported from Austria after the Anschluss by the Dutch merchant, Job Thole, to Huizen, near Amsterdam, whence collected by Berl's agent in the Netherlands, Alfred Seidl, and deposited for storage with Ulrix, Brussels. Acquired from Ulrix by Kayetan Mhlmann, 21 October 1941, and transported to Berlin by December ( vide Mhlmann's label on the reverse). Sold by Mhlmann to Field Marshal Hermann G”ring for RM 3,200 on 6 December 1941 and deposited in Carinhall, G”ring's residence. Captured with the rest of G”ring's collection in a train by American troops and taken to the Munich Collecting Point, whence moved to the Netherlands in 1946-7. The Instituut Collectie Nederland (earlier the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit, no. NK 2646) until restituted to Dr. Berl's heir in 2002. LITERATURE J. Sievers, 'Joachim Beuckelaer', Jahrbuch der k”niglich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 32, 1911, pp. 185 ff., as Joachim Beuckelaer. The H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, 'Pieter Aertsen en Joachim Beuckelaer en hun ontleeningen aan Serlio's' architectuurprenten', Oud Holland, 62, 1947, p. 130, fig. 8, as Joachim Beuckelaer. D. Kreidl, 'Joachim Beuckelaer und die Monogrammist HB', Oud Holland, 90, 1976, pp. 162 ff., as the Monogrammist HB. D. Kreidl, 'Der Monogrammist HB, Ein Niederl„nder in der Bronzino Werkstatt', Jahrbrch fur Kunstgeschichte, 34, 1981, pp. 165 ff., as the Monogrammist HB. Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, Old Master Paintings, An Illustrated Summary Catalogue, 1992, p. 39, no. 172, as Joachim Beuckelaer. M. Wolters, 'De Monogrammist HB geidentificeerd: "Huybrecht Beuckeleer"', Album Discipulorum J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, 1997, pp. 231 and 236, note 2. R. van Wegen, catalogue of the exhibition, Het 'glijk' van de achterkant, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 1999, no. 3, as Huybrecht Beuckeleer. EXHIBITION Roosendaal Museum, Roosendaal, from 1949, on loan until returned to the Hague in 1975. 's-Hertogenbosh, Noordbrabants Museum, no. 172, on loan from the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit. Maastricht, Bonnefantenmuseum, on loan from the Instituut Collectie Nederland, and included in the Museum's exhibition, Het 'glijk' van de achterkant, 1999, no. 30. NOTES For long attributed to Joachim Beuckelaer (although the attribution was implicitly rejected in the sale catalogue of 1911), the present work was first detached from his oeuvre by Kreidl, who ascribed it along with a Prodigal Son in the Mus‚es Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels ( Catalogue Inventaire de la Peinture Ancienne, 1984, p. 336, no. 3438) and a Christ on the Way to Calvary (present whereabouts unknown) to an anonymous master: the Monogrammist H.B. This master was identified as the hitherto unknown Huybrecht Beuckeleer as a result of an infra-red reflectographic examination of The Cook with Helpers also in the Mus‚es Royaux, Brussels ( ibid., p. 2, no. 2526), earlier attributed by Kreidl to the Monogrammist HB, which revealed the name 'Bukeler' and the date 1570 or 1576. This 'Bukeler' is to be identified with the Huybrecht Beuckeleer, who became a master in the Antwerp guild of St. Luke in 1579 as the son of 'Mattheus de Beuckeleer.' His father had become a master in the guild in 1535; he was also the father of the renowned Joachim. In 1567 Huybrecht was recorded as travelling in different countries; by the following year he was back in Antwerp. He was later recorded as a merchant. The present work was executed long before Bueckeleer became a master in his own right, and must therefore have been painted in his father's or brother's studio. Beuckeleer shows himself to be up-to-date in architectural fashion, by borrowing from a print in the Antwerp edition of Serlio's Regole generale, as Reglen en Metselrijen printed in 1549, in which he repeats the design for the Corinthian fireplace. Aertsen had used the motif in his 1552 Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), and Joachim was to use the print, illustrating the Ionic fireplace, in the Brussels Christ in the House of Martha and Mary executed in the same year as the Passover Feast. It was painted three years after his brother became a master in the guild, having been the pupil of Pieter Aertsen, and has clear affinities with Joachim's and Aertsen's styles. The subject is rare although Passover feasts were more frequently depicted in manuscript illustrations. The only precedent whose whereabouts is known would seem to be Dieric Bout's treatment in the lower part of the left wing of the Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament in the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, Louvain (M.J. Friedl„nder, Early Netherlandish Painting, III, comments and notes by N. Veron‚-Verhaegen, Leiden, 1968, p. 61, pls. 26 and 30). Beuckeleer accurately depicts the Lord's instructions concerning the institution of the Passover Feast, relayed by Moses and Aaron to the Israelites in Egypt as described in Exodus, chapter 12. The Lord decreed that the Israelites were to eat roast lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs 'with [their] loins girded, their shoes on [their] feet and [their] staffs in their hands' prior to their departure from Egypt, following the Lord's passing over the homes of the Israelites as he destroyed all the first born in Egypt. The participants are not seated as the Lord prescribed that the meal was to be eaten in haste. The child in the foreground alludes to the prophecy that children would later ask the meaning 'of this service' ( Exodus, XII: 26).
