Jacob's Farewell to Benjamin

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1650/60

Follower of Rembrandt van Rijn
Dutch, 1606-1669

This scene of kinship between men has been interpreted as the biblical figure Jacob granting permission to his youngest son, Benjamin, to travel with his brothers to Egypt. The artist, an unknown follower of Rembrandt van Rijn, conveyed Jacob’s ambivalent emotional state by presenting the boy with his back to the viewer. Rembrandt and his followers treated this subject many times, as the Protestant art market in the Dutch Republic valued scenes of faith and loyalty but lacked the Catholic interest in martyrdom.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Follower of Rembrandt van Rijn
Title: Jacob's Farewell to Benjamin
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1650–1660
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 113 × 110.5 cm (52 9/16 × 43 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Wilson L. Mead Fund
Reference Number: 1937.463
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/87633/manifest.json

[Cornelis] Hofstede de Groot, “Einige Betrachtungen über die Ausstellung holländischer Kunst in London,” Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 50 (1920), p. 135, no. 96.
Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of Dutch Art held in the Galleries of the Royal Academy, Burlington House, London, January–March 1929 (London, 1930), p. 37.
Art Prices Current: A Record of Sale Prices at the Principle London and other Auction Rooms September 1936 to July 1937, n.s. 16 (London, 1937), p. A170, no. 5724.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Report for the Year 1937 (Chicago, 1937), pp. 20 (ill.), 47.
“Did Victoors, Drost or Fabritius Paint It?,” Art Digest 13, 1 (1938), p. 7, ill.
Gilbert W. Longstreet, “A Painting of the Rembrandt School,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 33 (1939), pp. 2–5, ill. cover.
W. R. Valentiner, “Willem Drost, Pupil of Rembrandt,” Art Quarterly 2 (1939), pp. 315–17, 325, fig. 18.
Wolfgang Stechow, “Recent Periodical Literature on 17th-Century Painting in the Netherlands and Germany,” Art Bulletin 23 (1941), p. 229.
D. Pont, Barent Fabritius 1624–1673 (Utrecht, 1958), p. 16 n. 1.
Benjamin A. Rifkin, “Rembrandt and His Circle, Part 3,” Artnews 68, 7 (1969), p. 90.
Werner Sumowski, review of Rembrandt after Three Hundred Years, Pantheon 29 (1971), p. 174.
Rudolf E. O. Ekkart et al., Jan Lievens: ein Maler im Schatten Rembrandts, exh. cat. (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig, 1979), pp. 91, 93, under no. 28.
Jacques Foucart, Les peintures de Rembrandt au Louvre (Paris, 1982), p. 94, under inv. 1750.
Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. 1 (Landau/Pfalz, 1983), pp. 666, 670, no. 363, fig. 363.
J. Bruyn, review of Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, vol. 1 in Oud-Holland 98 (1984), p. 159.
Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Grand Rapids, 1986), p. 50.
Jonathan Bikker, Willem Drost (1633–1659): A Rembrandt Pupil in Amsterdam and Venice (New Haven and London, 2005), pp. 142, 188 n. 19.
David de Witt, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, The Bader Collection. Dutch and Flemish Paintings (Kingston, Ontario, 2008), p. 106, under no. 59.
Leonare Van Sloten, “Rules for Making Art,” in David de Witt, Leonare Van Sloten, and Jaap Van Der Veen, Rembrandt’s Late Pupils: Studying Under a Genius (Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, TERRA, 2015), 66-67, fig. 69.

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Exhibition of Dutch Art 1450–1900, 1929, no. 101, as attributed to Jan Victors
New York World’s Fair, Masterpieces of Art, May–October 1940, no. 101, as Samuel and Eli, by Barent Fabritius
Art Institute of Chicago, Rembrandt After Three Hundred Years, October 25–December 7, 1969, no. 44, as Samuel and Eli by Willem Drost; traveled to The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, December 22, 1969–February 1, 1970; The Detroit Institute of Arts, February 24, 1970–April 5, 1970.
Milwaukee Art Center, The Bible through Dutch Eyes: From Genesis through the Apocrypha, April 9–May 23, 1976, no. 24, as Benjamin’s Farewell from Jacob, Rembrandt School
Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Rembrandt’s Late Pupils, February 5-May 17, 2015, cat. 2.25-2.26 (ill.).

Herbert L. Terrell (died 1909), New York; by descent to his daughter Bertha Terrell Buckley (died 1937), Moundsmere Manor, Basingstoke; sold Sotheby’s, London, 23 June, 1937, no. 122, as Eli and Samuel by Barent Fabritius to Knoedler for £2,900 [for buyer and price see Art Prices Current 1937]; M. Knoedler and Co., New York and London; sold to the Art Institute, 1937.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.