LEONARD BRAMER | KING HEROD ASKING THE SCRIBES WHERE JESUS WILL BE BORN

Leonaert Bramer was born in Delft and began travelling through Europe aged 18. He journeyed to France and down through Italy to reach Rome in 1619, where he lived until 1625. While there, Bramer was greatly influenced by the Caraveggesque painters and particularly Adam Elsheimer, a German artist also working in Rome. Bramer was inspired by Elsheimer’s night scenes and specialised in these himself, earning him the nickname ‘Leonardo delle Notti’.

This predilection for dark settings illuminated dramatically with candlelight is exemplified in the present work, where chiaroscuro adds significantly to the drama of the scene. The diminutive figures in cavernous surroundings are also typical of Bramer’s œuvre.

Bramer favoured mythological, historical and biblical subjects, as in the present painting, which has been interpreted both as a depiction of King Herod asking the Scribes where Jesus will be born (Mathew 2:3-5) and Saphan reading the book of Law aloud to Josiah (2 Kings 22:8-10), a scene that Bramer painted several times. 

Dr. Cornelis Johannes Karel Van Aalst (see Provenance) was a banker and president-director of Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij NV. He owned a considerable and important collection of Dutch paintings, many of which were sold in 1960 (see Provenance), including Rembrandt's Juno, today in the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.1

1 https://hammer.ucla.edu/collections/armand-hammer-collection/#gallery_5f31d8fd0fd4d019a701bd74687760cf32d0e363