Matthias Stomer Amersfoort near Utrecht circa 1600 - after 1652 (?) Sicily or Northern Italy

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Description

Matthias Stomer
Saul and the Witch of Endor
oil on canvas

Provenance

Collection H. Jochems, Wassenaar, 1970;
By whom sold, The Hague, Glerum, February 4, 1991, lot 26.

Exhibited

Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Caravaggisten en Italianisanten uit Nederlands bezit, 2001.

Literature

S. Bottari, "Aggiunte al Manfredi, al Renieri e allo Stomer", in Arte Antica e Moderna 29, 1965, pp. 57-60, reproduced as fig. 26b.;
B. Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement; Lists of pictures by Caravaggio and his Followers, Oxford 1979, p.96, no. 1534;
B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, 3 vols., Turin 1989, vol. 1, p. 188, no. 1534; reproduced vol. 3, no. 1534.

Catalogue Note

The subject of this picture is the Old Testament account of King Saul's conjuring the spirit of the prophet Samuel, with the help of the Witch of Endor, in order to request his advice on the eve of a battle against the Philistines (Samuel I, 28; 7-25). The sorceress successfully summoned the deceased prophet who was known for his wisdom, but Samuel had no solace to offer: he replied to Saul that "the Lord has departed from thee, and is become thine adversary."

For this ambitious and original composition, Stomer chose the moment when the ghost of Samuel has just appeared to the living, and King Saul kneels and leans in to ask for his old mentor's insight. Samuel, standing in hieratic monumentality in the center of the compostion, is about to reveal his prophecy, his arm outstreched towards the sky to indicate the divine origin of his ill tidings.

Stomer exploits to the fullest the teachings of his first master Gerrit van Honthorst, who was himself indebted to the artistic achievements of Caravaggio. This is particularly salient in the expressive use of the artificial light diffused by the torch that the necromancer holds up by Samuel's side.

Leonard J. Slatkes, in a private communication of July 3rd, 2002, dated the present painting to circa 1635. This date falls in the period when Stomer was active in Naples and becoming increasingly popular with local patrons, which allowed him to work on a grander scale than during his early career in the Netherlands.