Breenbergh and Rembrandt in Dialogue

Bartholomeus Breenbergh,  The Preaching of John the Baptist, 1634,  New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rembrandt and Breenbergh began their Amsterdam careers in the early 1630s, introducing styles that were a great novelty in Amsterdam. This essay argues that these two highly talented and ambitious young artists responded to each other’s works when painting their versions of The Preaching of John the Baptist. First Breenbergh reacted to Rembrandt’s grisaille when he painted the panel of 1634 now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acquired by Walter Liedtke); subsequently Rembrandt responded to Breenbergh when he enlarged his composition, and finally Breenbergh responded in turn when painting a second version of this subject. Their goal was to demonstrate to an audience of discerning connoisseurs their contrasting views about what makes a good small-figured composition of a history subject. How serious Breenbergh was in “correcting” Rembrandt’s “from life” ideology, applying the traditional rules of decorum in an up-to-date Roman idiom, is even more pronounced in two paintings of Christ and the Woman of Samaria; both are an immediate response to Rembrandt’s etching of the same subject dated 1634.

DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.8

Acknowledgements

The kernel of this article is to be found in a short paragraph in Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt’s Rivals: History Painting in Amsterdam 1630–1650 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2015), 138–39. A few weeks before his tragic death Walter Liedtke read the book in manuscript, because he had been asked by the publisher to write an endorsement. Walter’s beautiful endorsement on the dust jacket gives the book a value beyond words.

Imprint

Review: Peer Review (Double Blind)
DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.8
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Recommended Citation:
Eric Jan Sluijter, "Breenbergh and Rembrandt in Dialogue," Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 9:1 (Winter 2017) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.1.8