Bartholomeus Breenbergh

Possibly anonymous sale, Amsterdam, August, 31, 1796, lot 5 (see Roethlisberger literature below);
Edward Speyer, London;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, June 27, 1930, (as dated 1639), sold for £115, 10 shillings;
Harcourt Johnstone, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London;
Private Collection, Fort Lauderdale;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, January 17, 1992, lot 31;
Anonymous sale ("Property of a Private Collector Sold without Reserve"), January 24, 2002, lot 7;
There purchased by the present collector.

London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1912, cat. no. 35;
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1913, cat. no. 4;
Warrington, England, on loan to Warrington Municipal Museum,
1936-1940;
Montreal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Italian Recollections: Dutch Painters of the Golden Age, June 8 - July 22, 1990, cat. no. 42, reproduced.

A. Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions: 1813 - 1912, 1913, vol. I, p. 101;
E. Bénézit, Dictionaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, 1976, vol. 2, p. 292 (Moïse sauvé des eaux, as dated 1639);
M. Roethlisberger, Bartholomeus Breenbergh: The Paintings, Berlin 1981, p. 41, under cat. no.  64 (as a reference to the painting lent by Edward Speyer to the "British (sic) Fine Arts Club, London 1912, no. 35," see Exhibited);
F.J. Duparc and L. L. Graif, Italian Recollections: Dutch Painters of the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Montreal 1990, cat. no. 24, reproduced;
M.G. Roethlisberger, Bartholemeus Breenbergh, exhibition catalogue, Richard L. Feigen & Company New York, 1991, Appendix p. 84, no.8;
E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, 1999, vol. 2, p. 773 (Moïse sauvé des eaux, as dated 1639). 

Panel join runs horizontally across top quarter of panel. Panel is flat, and beveled on at least the left and right side. U.V. light reveals a think strip of retouching along the panel join, although this is largely invisible to the naked eye. The architectural ruins to the left reveal an uneven varnish, particularly in the darks of the wall. The painting is overall in lovely state. The figures and sky have retained their detail, and the paint surface in general is well preserved. A few retouches here and there but applied well. The painting can be hung in its present state. In a carved and gilt wood frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This painting is the largest of five known works Breenbergh painted of the Finding of Moses. A number of paintings by Breenbergh of this subject and of similar size are recorded in several eighteenth century sales;¹ unfortunately, without descriptions it is unclear whether the present panel may be one or more of the paintings listed in those early sales. The date of the present work has traditionally been read as 1639; however, at the time of the 1992 sale (see Provenance), Frederik J. Duparc, after careful first-hand inspection, determined that the date on the present work reads 1633. In their exhibition catalogue,² Duparc and Graif note that the compositional device of large ruins prominently placed so as to compete with the other elements of the landscape is " characteristic of the artist in the mid-1630s as in, for example, Landscape with Cimone and Ifigenia (Musée Boucher de Perthes, Abbeville, France) and Landscape with Christ and the Centurion (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, Germany)." They further compare the present work with a picture of the same subject in the collection of the National Gallery, London, dated 1636, which they feel is less successfully composed than the present painting.

The highly dramatic action and exotic location of the Finding of Moses lent itself perfectly to the bright, Mediterranean landscapes in which the artist specialized. The first of the five works by Breenbergh of this subject is a painting, which is also his earliest known signed and dated painting, of 1622, now in the collection of the Hallwyl Museum, Stockholm. In the present work, the artist has included the classical ruins which he so loved to depict, and has taken some care to portray the " Egyptianess" of the scene. The beautifully executed figures of Pharaoh's daughter and her entourage have been dressed in oriental fashion; in the middle distance the artist has included an obelisk - of the sort imported to Rome from Egypt in antiquity - and at its base the figure of the river god Nile, recumbent on the back of a crocodile and holding an oar. A similar figure of a river god is to be found in another painting by Breenbergh of Biblical (and therfore Eastern) subject, the Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well.³

1.  see M. Roethlisberger, 1981, under Literature.
2.  see 1990 Montreal exhibition under Exhibited and Literature.
3.  see M. Roethisberger, op. cit, p. 46, cat. no. 82, reproduced.