Support The support consists of two pieces of plain-weave canvas with a horizontal seam at approx. 99 cm from the bottom, and has been wax-resin lined. The tacking edges have been preserved at the top and on the left and right, though damaged. The bottom tacking edge could not be assessed. Cusping is present at the top, but only vaguely visible. Judging by the crack pattern parallel to the edges at the top and bottom and on the left, the bars of the original strainer were approx. 5.5 cm wide. The narrower crack pattern (approx. 4.5 cm) on the right indicates that the initial sight size of the painting must have been slightly wider.

Preparatory layers The double ground extends over the tacking edges at the top and on the left and right. The first, deep orange-red layer contains a few fine black pigment particles, an occasional coarse black pigment particle and some white pigment. The second, slightly thinner yellowish-brown layer consists of mostly fine warm brown pigment particles, a few yellow and blue pigment particles, some fine and coarser white pigment particles and sporadic large orange pigment particles. Coarse brushstrokes are visible throughout the paint surface.

Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the tacking edges at the top and on the left and right. The composition was built up from the back to the front with coarse, broad and loose brushstrokes. Most elements were placed on top of the background. For instance, the distant building at the centre was applied, for the most part, over the sky, as were the two camels to the right of the main structure and the spears. The lighter paints are thick, opaque and textured, the darker ones thinner, more transparent and smooth. Red lakes were used for Jacob and Esau’s draperies and those of the figure in the right foreground. Highlights were indicated with pastose, whitish-yellow blobs and lines. In the facial features, they were restricted to just the eyes of Jacob and Esau and two of the women. The contour of the headscarf of the woman closest to Jacob was redefined with the light paint of the architecture.
Willem de Ridder, 2020

Fair. The paint layer is abraded and has many small losses and old, discoloured retouches throughout, for example in the red cloth of the man on the right and in the sky to the right of the tree. The signature is heavily abraded. The varnish has yellowed, saturates poorly and has turned dull. Residues of an old varnish are present in the interstices of the paint surface.

…; collection Tholen, Huis De Bockhorst, Spankeren, near Dieren, by 1886;¹¹G.P. Rouffaer, ‘Vier Kamper schilders: Ernst Maeler, Mechtelt toe Boecop, Bernhard Vollenhove, Steven van Duyven, I: Ernst Maeler’, Oud Holland 4 (1886), pp. 47-60, esp. p. 53.…; sale, C.J. Terbrugge et al. [anonymous section], Amsterdam (F. Muller et al.), 12 June 1888 sqq., no. 42, fl. 300, to Van Pappelendam;²²Copy RKD. sale, Van Pappelendam & Schouten, Amsterdam (F. Muller and C.F. Roos), 11 June 1889 sqq., no. 70, fl. 60, to Adriaan Justus Enschedé (1829-1896), Haarlem;³³Copy RKD. by whom donated to the museum, 13 July 1889⁴⁴NHA, ARS, Kop., inv. 289, p. 231, no. 527 (6 July 1889), p. 232, no. 530 (16 July 1889); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 169, no. 92 (14 June 1889).

Object number: SK-A-1498

Credit line: Gift of A.J. Enschedé, Haarlem

Jacob returned to Canaan after spending some 20 years in Mesopotamia. He was rather worried about seeing his brother Esau, who had sworn to kill him for stealing both his birthright and his father’s blessing. However, the elder son had forgiven him, and when they met the reconciliation was both heartfelt and emotional (Genesis 33:1-4). The subject was quite popular among various seventeenth-century Dutch painters ranging from Jacob Pynas,⁸⁸SK-A-3510. Esaias van de Velde and Gerrit Willemsz Horst to Gerrit Claesz Bleker and Jan Baptist Weenix.⁹⁹A. Pigler, Barockthemen: Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, I, Budapest 1974, p. 72. See also N. van de Kamp, ‘Genesis: De oergeschiedenis en de verhalen van de aartsvaders’, in C. Tümpel et al., Het Oude Testament in de schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Joods Historisch Museum) 1991-92, pp. 24-53, esp. p. 40. Hogers added nothing new to the standard type. Jacob is kneeling, asking for forgiveness. Esau, who is shown as a soldier wearing a sword, embraces him and wipes away a tear. Behind Jacob are the four women of his party (Leah and Rachel and two handmaids) and his children. The group is surrounded by Esau’s men, while the right side of the scene is filled with the sheep, goats and cattle that Jacob wanted to give his brother to appease him.¹⁰¹⁰Genesis 32:13-16.

There is a composition sketch by Hogers, signed and dated 1655 (fig. a), in which there are individual motifs matching those in the picture, such as the man mounting the donkey on the right, but in which both Jacob and Esau are standing. The main characters are also more isolated and larger than the other figures, and more space has been left for the landscape. The emphasis in the drawing is on the reconciliation and the reunion, while in the painting it is on penitence and guilt.

Renckens was the first to publish the date as 1655 and not 1635,¹¹¹¹B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Jacob Hogers’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 51-66, esp. p. 53. The incorrect reading had already been noted by Hofstede de Groot; see Hofstede de Groot notes, RKD. and that fits in well with Hogers’s many history paintings from that period. The crude brushwork, the use of strong chiaroscuro contrasts, the deep black shadows, the distinctive physiognomies and the slightly chaotic composition are all very similar to two history pieces from 1653 and 1654.¹²¹²Jacob and Esau, 1653, canvas, 187 x 210 cm, and David with the Head of Goliath Being Greeted by the Daughters of Jerusalem, 1654, canvas, 210 x 192 cm, both Freiherr von Twickel Collection, Münster; photos RKD. Another (undated) version of The Meeting of Jacob and Esau attributable to Hogers, in which he moved the reunion more to the foreground, must also be from the same period.¹³¹³Canvas, 151 x 198 cm, Freiherr von Twickel Collection, Münster; photo RKD. In short, the Rijksmuseum picture is typical of Hogers’s later work.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

G. Isarlov, ‘Rembrandt et son entourage’, La Renaissance 19 (1936), July-September, pp. 1-50, esp. p. 17; B.J.A. Renckens, ‘Jacob Hogers’, Oud Holland 70 (1955), pp. 51-66, esp. pp. 60, 64, no. 8

1903, p. 129, no. 1209; 1934, p. 132, no. 1209; 1960, pp. 138-39, no. 1209; 1976, p. 281, no. A

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2026, 'Jacob Hogers, _, 1655', in J. Bikker (ed.), _Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027372