King David Receiving the Cistern Water of Bethlehem

1515/20

Antwerp Mannerist (Master of the Antwerp Adoration group)
Netherlandish

These two scenes are particularly fine examples of the decorative style practiced in Antwerp by a group of largely anonymous artists now dubbed Antwerp Mannerists. The paintings orignally formed the interior of the wings of a folding triptych with the Adoration of the Magi as its center. Both show gifts being presented to a ruler on his throne and would have been understood as Old Testament prefigurations of the submission of the nations to Christ as king, the theme of the lost Adoration panel. They also provided an excuse for the artist to depict exotic costumes, architecture, and luxury goods - the hallmarks of the Antwerp Mannerist style.

On View: European Painting and Sculpture, Gallery 207

Artist: Antwerp Mannerist
Title: King David Receiving the Cistern Water of Bethlehem
Origin: Belgium
Date: 1505–1525
Medium: Oil on panel, transferred to canvas
Dimensions: 73.5 × 27.5 cm (28 7/8 × 10 7/8 in.) Image: 72.7 × 26.8 cm (28 5/8 × 10 9/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number: 1936.127

Salomon Reinach, Répertoire de peintures du moyen âge et de la renaissance (1280–1580), vol. 2, Paris, 1907, p. 13, no. 1 (ill.; line drawing).
John La Farge, “Art in America: Two Works Formerly Attributed to Herri met de Bles,” Burlington Magazine 12 (1908), pp. 387–88 (ill. opp. p. 387).
“A Tour of the World of Art in 150 Masterpieces,” Masterpieces 1 (1950), p. 61 (ill. 1936.126).
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, p. 300.
Giovanni Carandente, Collections d’Italie, Répertoire 3, Brussels, 1968, p. 14.
Peter van den Brink, in Jochen Sander, Gold, Weihrauch und Myrrhe: Die “von Grootesche Anbetung der Heiligen Drei Könige,” exh. cat., Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, 2001, pp. 58, 60–61 (ill.).
Martha Wolff, “Hebrew Kings and Antwerp Mannerists,” in Collected Opinions: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Honor of Alfred Bader, ed. Volker Manuth and Axel Rüger, London, 2004, pp. 279–93, figs. 1, 5–6.
Martha Wolff in Martha Wolff et al., Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2008, pp. 129-35, ill.
Celia Hilliard, "'The Prime Mover': Charles L. Hutchinson and the Making of the Art Institute of Chicago," Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 36,1 (2010), pp. 43, 89, fig. 11.
Alison McQueen, From Renaissance to Rodin: Celebrating the Tanenbaum Gift, Toronto, 2012, p. 30, under nos. 4 and 5.

Durand-Ruel, Paris, by 1880/82 [Durand-Ruel stockbook for these years; letter from Caroline Durand-Ruel Godfroy, Oct. 19, 1999, in curatorial file]; sold to Charles L. Hutchinson (d. 1924), Chicago, May 8, 1890 [shipped to Chicago on July 16, 1890, Art Institute Archive]; by descent to his widow, Frances Kinsley Hutchinson (d. 1936), Chicago; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1936.

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