The support is a copper plate with a tin coating. A light grey underpainting beneath the architecture, landscape and figures was applied over a white ground. The paint layers were smoothly and opaquely applied, except for some areas in the sky. There is a small pentimento in the contours of the Virgin’s face. Infrared photography revealed an underdrawing in the architecture of the Coliseum in the background and in that of the podium on the right.

Fair. The hills on the left are slightly abraded, leading to transparency in the trees, the buildings and, in particular, the caravan. The blue of the Virgin’s cloak and that of Melchior and of the figure standing on his left, is discoloured, and shows a distinct craquelure. There are small discoloured retouchings throughout.

…; sale, F. Kaijser (†) (Frankfurt, Amsterdam) et al. [section F. Kaijser], Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 4 December 1888 sqq., no. 13, as B. Breenbergh, fl. 295, to J.H. Balfoort for the Vereniging Rembrandt;¹¹Copy RKD. from the Vereniging Rembrandt, fl. 347, to the museum, January 1889²²RANH, ARS, IS, inv. 169, no. 18 (31 January 1889, no. 287); RANH, ARS, Kop, inv. 289, p. 210, no. 477 (2 February 1889).

Object number: SK-A-1482

In his review of the auction of the estate of F. Kaijser in 1888, Bredius suggested a date for this picture in the middle of Breenbergh’s career. He also noted that it showed the strong influence of Cornelis van Poelenburch, and that it was painted very smoothly.⁶⁶Bredius 1888, p. 155. Doubts about the attribution were first voiced by Blankert in 1968, who considered its quality not up to Breenbergh’s standard, suggesting instead that it might be a copy or workshop product.⁷⁷Note RMA. Roethlisberger also concluded that the traditional attribution could not be sustained, although he pointed to the resemblance to Van Poelenburch’s work from the end of his time in Italy, and to that of Jan Pynas – two artists who had a profound influence on Breenbergh.

This small copper, with a biblical scene set in an open space reminiscent of the Roman fora with a ruin in the background that recalls the Coliseum,⁸⁸The same view of the Coliseum appears in the background of a picture by Van Poelenburch in Apsley House, London; Roethlisberger 1981, p. 36, no. 42; illustrated in coll. cat. London 1982, p. 34, no. 14, as Bartholomeus Breenbergh. is indeed of the type that Breenbergh painted when under the influence of Van Poelenburch in the late 1620s and early 1630s.⁹⁹See, for example, Atalanta and Hippomenes, dated 1630, Kassel, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, and The Journey of Eliezer and Rebecca of the same year, Montreal, Mr and Mrs Michal Hornstein collection; Roethlisberger 1981, pp. 58-59, nos. 133, 134 (ill.). Elements of the composition are also to be found in other paintings by Breenbergh, such as the horse on the left with its left leg lifted and its head hanging down, which appears in The Schoolmaster of Falerii in Kassel.¹⁰¹⁰Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; illustrated in Roethlisberger 1981, pp. 65, 66, no. 157. The positions of the kneeling king, whose robe is gathered up by a young boy behind him, and of the Virgin and Child, are similar to those in a signed picture dated 1648 formerly in Amsterdam.¹¹¹¹With P. de Boer, 1985; illustrated in Roethlisberger 1991, p. 85, no. 12. However, the figures in Breenbergh’s paintings from around 1630 are usually placed more towards the background, and only start crowding the foreground later in his career. The smooth manner in which the figures are painted and the use of bright colours are also more reminiscent of Breenbergh’s late work. This discrepancy argues on the one hand for a date around 1630 and on the other for one in the 1640s. The overall weakness of the composition suggests that the painting was produced by an artist in Breenbergh’s immediate circle in the 1640s. That Breenbergh’s work was copied during his own lifetime, even though he does not appear to have had a workshop, is attested to by a copy of Joseph Distributing Corn in Egypt, which has a similar bright palette and was either copied after the lost original by Breenbergh or after Jan de Bisschop’s reproductive print.¹²¹²Rotterdam, Belasting & Douane Museum; Verdi 2005, p. 42, no. 7 (ill.), p. 63, no. 23 (ill.). Verdi’s suggestion that Jan de Bisschop also painted the copy is unsustainable.

Taco Dibbits, 2007

See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements

This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 35.

Roethlisberger 1981, p. 103, no. 315

1903, p. 64, no. 621 (as Breenbergh); 1976, p. 143, no. A 1482 (as attributed to Breenbergh); 2007, no. 35

T. Dibbits, 2007, 'circle of Bartholomeus Breenbergh, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1640 - c. 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026753