The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest (Matthew 22:1-14)

Support The support consists of two pieces of plain-weave canvas with a horizontal seam at approx. 8 cm from the top, and has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved. Cusping is visible along the bottom of the seam and very vaguely on the left and right. An imprint of an earlier strainer is visible at approx. 2 cm from the outer edges.
Preparatory layers The triple ground extends up to the tacking edges. The first layer is a bright orange containing some black pigment particles. The second ground is a warm beigeish grey and consists of white and some orange and yellow pigment particles. The third layer is a cooler whitish grey and is mostly composed of white and some black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges. An initial lay-in in the form of a dark, rather linear sketch is clearly visible with the naked eye here and there, for example in the turned face of the man sitting at the table in the centre. The composition was built up from the back to the front using reserves, the edges of which were left uncovered in many places. The figures in the background were swiftly and only thinly indicated, those in the middle ground in slightly thicker paint and with a bit more detail, some of their facial features being accentuated with dark lines. The king, by comparison, was meticulously and thickly executed, and his reserve completely obscured. Glazes were used for several of the reds and are especially striking in the king’s robe. The fluid paints, loosely applied wet in wet, show hardly any brushmarking. The highlights consist of countless small dots, especially in the brocades. The hands and positioning of the fingers of the unwelcome guest being carried away were shifted, and the contour of the king’s hand was modified.
Willem de Ridder, 2023

Fair. The seam of the canvas is raised, but stable. The paint layer is abraded in the darker, more transparent areas, and especially on the tops of cracks. Small areas of damage in the centre, apparently caused by the firing of lead shot, were filled and retouched during the most recent restoration. The paint layer, or varnish, shows a greyish haze in the lower left. The varnish has yellowed and lost its saturation.

…; from the dealer Dirck van der Aa, The Hague, with SK-A-455, fl. 1,280, to the museum, as Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, 17 November 1802;¹¹E.W. Moes and E. van Biema, De Nationale Konst-Gallery en het Koninklijk Museum, Amsterdam 1909, p. 59. on loan to the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, since 1977

ObjectNumber: SK-A-157

The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest was bought in 1802 as a Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, and it was accordingly catalogued after the painting was transferred from the Nationale Konst-Gallery in The Hague to the Koninklijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1808.⁴⁴E.W. Moes and E. van Biema, De Nationale Konst-Gallery en het Koninklijk Museum, Amsterdam 1909, p. 115; C. Apostool, Catalogus der schilderijen, oudheden, enz. op het Koninklijk Museum te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1809, p. 21, no. 86. For a long time after that it was thought to be by Samuel van Hoogstraten until Hofstede de Groot assigned it to Claes Moeyaert in 1899.⁵⁵C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Kritische opmerkingen omtrent eenige schilderijen in ’s Rijksmuseum’, Oud Holland 17 (1899), pp. 163-70, esp. pp. 167-68. Astrid Tümpel suggested an artist from the circle of Salomon de Bray,⁶⁶A. Tümpel, ‘Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert’, Oud Holland 88 (1974), pp. 1-163, 245-90, esp. p. 285, no. A39. and lately the names of Jacob Backer and, most recently, Dirck van Santvoort came up.⁷⁷P.J.J. van Thiel et al., All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: A Completely Illustrated Catalogue, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1976, pp. 93-94, no. A 157. For the attribution to Van Santvoort see I.V. Linnik, Gollandskaja z?ivopis' XVII veka i problemy atribucii kartin, Leningrad 1980, p. 125; R. Schillemans, Bijbelschilderkunst rond Rembrandt, Utrecht 1989, pp. 101-03; Van Eck in C.J.F. van Schooten and W.C.M. Wüstefeld (eds.), Goddelijk geschilderd: Honderd meesterwerken van Museum Catharijneconvent, coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, pp. 203-04; M.S. Senenko, The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts: Collection of Dutch Paintings XVII-XIX Centuries, coll. cat. Moscow 2009, p. 354. All of these attributions failed to convince.

The composition is actually closely related to Simon Kick’s signed Elisha Refusing Naaman’s Gifts of 1644 (fig. a),⁸⁸On which see J. Rosen, ‘A Great Minor Master: The Robbery by Simon Kick in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie: With an Appendix Including a Complete Catalogue of Paintings by Simon Kick (1603-1652)’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 49 (2007), pp. 85-98, esp. p. 98, no. 32. in which he showed off his talents as a history painter in a large format. Apart from the similarities between the prophet Elisha and the king in the Rijksmuseum picture there is Kick’s typical practice of placing the protagonist on the right and shown from the side, as he did in several genre pieces.⁹⁹See, for example, Distinguished Guest, present whereabouts unknown; illustrated in E. Borger, De Hollandse kortegaard: Geschilderde wachtlokalen uit de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Naarden (Nederlands Vestingmuseum) 1996, p. 38, in which there is a very closely related interaction between the standing and the bending figures. For a similar grouping see also Peasants and an Officer in Poznan; illustrated in A. Dobrzycka (ed.), Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu: Malarstwo holenderskie XVII-XVIIIe w., coll. cat. Poznan (National Museum) 1958, fig. 60. In a drawing attributed to Kick there is a biblical figure seen from the same vantage point.¹⁰¹⁰Rijksmuseum, RP-T-1887-A-1123; illustrated in P. Schatborn, ‘Dutchmen Found in Copenhagen: Figure Drawings by Simon Kick and Constantijn Verhout’, in V. Villadsen et al. (eds.), Festschrift to Erik Fischer: European Drawings from Six Centuries, Copenhagen 1990, pp. 183-204, esp. p. 192. Both paintings also share a comparable rendering of the velvet of the cloaks. There are also correspondences in the horizontal design with a fairly large number of people, all at equal height, in the group on the far right, in the central view through to the background, and in the fall of light accentuating parts of the scene. In addition to these arguments for assigning The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest to Kick, the characterization of the figures also fits neatly within the artist’s oeuvre.¹¹¹¹Compare, for example, the standing peasants in Peasants and an Officer in Poznan; A. Dobrzycka (ed.), Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu: Malarstwo holenderskie XVII-XVIIIe w., coll. cat. Poznan (National Museum) 1958, fig. 60. The boy with the dish seen in profile at upper right is very comparable to A Soldier in an Interior, present whereabouts unknown; catalogue for the sale, London (Sotheby’s), 5 July 1995, no. 218 (ill.). Many of his pictures from the first half of the 1640s are in dark, brownish tones, while the protagonist’s attire is in bright and more opaque colours. The present work will have been made at roughly the same time as Elisha Refusing Naaman’s Gifts.

The Old Testament parable of the unworthy guest tells of a king who gives a feast to celebrate his son’s wedding. When many of the invitees refuse to come, and even insult and murder some of his staff, he flies into a rage, punishing those who has been ungrateful and giving orders to ask passers-by to join the banquet instead. One of them, though, is not suitably dressed. ‘Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 22:13). The first group in the parable stands for those who reject the call to become Christians, while the second one is welcomed into the kingdom of God with open arms, provided they have prepared themselves properly.¹²¹²R. Schillemans, Bijbelschilderkunst rond Rembrandt, Utrecht 1989, p. 102. The story was not often depicted, and when it was, the artist devoted as much attention to the banquet as to the ejection of the unworthy guest.¹³¹³See, for example, a painting attributed to Frans Francken II in Braunschweig; illustrated in R. Klessmann (ed.), Die flämischen Gemälde des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, coll. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 2003, p. 49. Also a version by Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot, 1635, in Utrecht; illustrated in L.M. Helmus, De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum, Utrecht, V: Schilderkunst tot 1850, coll. cat. Utrecht 1999, II, p. 835. Kick, though, focuses on the man’s removal and follows the visual tradition based on Matthew by showing him being carried out horizontally, tied hand and foot.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

C. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Kritische opmerkingen omtrent eenige schilderijen in ’s Rijksmuseum’, Oud Holland 17 (1899), pp. 163-70, esp. pp. 167-68 (as Nicolaes Moeyaert); A. Tümpel, ‘Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert’, Oud Holland 88 (1974), pp. 1-163, 245-90, esp. p. 285, no. A39 (as circle of Salomon de Bray), with earlier literature; I.V. Linnik, Gollandskaja živopisʹ XVII veka i problemy atribucii kartin, Leningrad 1980, p. 125 (as Dirck van Santvoort); R. Schillemans, Bijbelschilderkunst rond Rembrandt, Utrecht 1989, pp. 101-03 (as Dirck van Santvoort ?); J. Dijkstra, P.P.W.M. Dirkse and A.E.A.M. Smits, De schilderijen van Museum Catharijneconvent, coll. cat. Utrecht 2002, pp. 254-55 (as Dirck van Santvoort); Van Eck in C.J.F. van Schooten and W.C.M. Wüstefeld (eds.), Goddelijk geschilderd: Honderd meesterwerken van Museum Catharijneconvent, coll. cat. Utrecht 2003, pp. 203-04 (as Dirck van Santvoort)

1809, p. 21, no. 86 (as Gerbrand van den Eeckhout); 1843, p. 19, no. 85 (as Gerbrand van den Eeckhout; ‘irreparably damaged, not worth the expense of doing anything to it. Taken to the attic’); 1858, pp. 62-63, no. 126 (as Samuel van Hoogstraten); 1880, pp. 156-57, no. 160 (as Samuel van Hoogstraten); 1887, p. 82, no. 690 (as Samuel van Hoogstraten, with a note that it was probably not by him); 1903, p. 180, no. 1634 (as attributed to Claes Moeyaert); 1934, p. 193, no. 1634 (as attributed to Claes Moeyaert); 1976, pp. 93-94, no. A 157 (as attributed to Jacob Backer)

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2023, 'attributed to Simon Kick, The Parable of the Unworthy Wedding Guest (Matthew 22:1-14), c. 1644', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5866