ADRIAEN VAN STALBEMT | WOODED RIVER LANDSCAPE WITH TOBIAS AND THE ANGEL

With Gebr. Douwes, Amsterdam, 1959, from whom acquired by

F.C. Butôt, Sankt Gilgen, Austria;

From whom acquired.

Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, Nederlandse landschappen uit de 17e eeuw, July - August 1963, no. 119;

Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Le siècle de Rubens, 15 October - 12 December 1965, no. 268;

Salzburg, Museumpavillon im Mirabellgarten, 12 July – 12 September 1972; Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, 26 September 1972 – 14 January 1973, Niederländische Kunst aus dem Goldenen Jahrhundert, unnumbered;

Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Hollandse en Vlaamse Kunst uit de 17e eeuw, 16 February – 1 April 1973, unnumbered;

Munich, Sotheby’s, A selection of paintings and drawings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt, June 1989;

Schieder-Schwalenberg, Robert-Koepke-Haus, Wege durch das Land - Inventar der Landschaft. Niederländische Landschaftsschilderungen vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert, June - August 2000, no. 17;

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, At Home in the Golden Age, 9 February – 18 May 2008, no. 106.

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

L.J. Bol et al., Nederlandse landschappen uit de 17e eeuw, exh. cat., Dordrecht 1963, p. 35, cat. no. 119, reproduced fig. 16;

S. Speth-Holterhoff, in Le siècle de Rubens, exh. cat., Brussels 1965, p. 254, cat. no. 268, reproduced;

Niederländisches Kunst aus dem Goldenen Jahrhundert--Gemälde und Zeichnungen im Umkreis grosser Meister aus der Sammlung F.C. Butôt, exh. cat., Salzburg 1972, pp. 130-31, reproduced;

Hollandse en Vlaamse kunst uit de 17e eeuw: hoogtepunten van minder bekende meesters: schilderijen en tekeningen uit de verzameling F.C. Butôt, exh. cat., Rotterdam 1973, pp. 132-33, reproduced;

L.J. Bol, G. Keyes and F.C. Butôt, Netherlandish paintings and drawings from the collection of F.C. Butôt by little-known and rare masters of the seventeenth century, London 1981, p. 202, cat. no. 84, reproduced;

G.L. Gordon, Supplement to the Catalogue of Netherlandish Paintings and Drawings from the Collection of F.C. Butôt, London (Sotheby’s) 1989;

Wege durch das Land - Inventar der Landschaft. Niederländische Landschaftsschilderungen vom 16. bis 18. Jahrhundert, exh. cat., Schwalenberg 2000, cat. no. 17;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 3, Landschaften und Seestücke, Münster/Hamburg/London 2001, pp. 256-59, cat. no. 68, reproduced in colour;

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok et al., At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 105, cat. no. 106, reproduced in colour.

Adriaen van Stalbemt was a painter of Flemish origin who moved to Middelburg with his Protestant family after the Fall of Antwerp in 1585, when the city was forced to surrender to the Catholic Spanish forces. He most likely received his artistic training in Middelburg but later returned to Antwerp in 1609, having also spent 10 months in England, where he painted two views of Greenwich with King Charles I and Henrietta Maria in 1633-34 (Royal Collection). 

This painting is one of fairly few dated works within Stalbemt's œuvre. Lack of dates on other paintings and an eclectic style make Stalbemt's chronology difficult to determine. The present panel must have been painted in Antwerp and the painterly brushstrokes, particularly in the surrounding foliage, reveal a move away from the influences of artists such as Gillis van Coninxloo and Jan Brueghel the Elder, whose meticulousness Stalbemt imitated in other works.

The subject appears to have been popular with wealthy merchants who sent their sons away on business trips, as it addresses themes of filial piety, enterprise and charity. The story is taken from the apocryphal Book of Tobit. Tobias was sent by his blind merchant father, Tobit, to collect a debt. The Archangel Raphael accompanied Tobias and instructed him to extract the heart and liver of a fish to heal his father's blindness, which Tobias did upon returning home. It is unusual to picture the act of dissecting the fish, as Stalbemt has done here.