First noted in modern literature in 1892 by Karl Woermann in the Galerie Weber in Hamburg as a “Charakteristisches, gutes Bild des Meisters”; listed in 1910 by Wurzbach, and by 1921 exhibited and published at the Düsseldorf Kunstverein. Discussed by Cornelis Müller-Hofstede in his Berlin dissertation from 1925 on the Amsterdam history painters of the pre-Rembrandt school, again by Hans Schneider in his entry on Moeyaert in Thieme Becker, vol. XXV,1931, s.v.
More recently, there is a comprehensive monographic study with catalogue by Astrid Tümpel, “Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert”, Oud-Holland, vol. 88, Nos. 1-2 & 4, 1974, No.1-2, pp. 70-76, in which the present painting is reproduced p.71 as fig. 96.; it is further documented in Tümpel’s Moeyaert catalogue that appeared in Oud-Holland, vol. 88, No. 4, as Katalog No.14, pp. 248-249, with further literature, older provenance and a supplemental illustration of Moeyaert’s preparatory drawing for this painting. Since 1974, the painting was acquired from a private collection in Düsseldorf by Richard Feigen in New York and then to a private collection there.
The subject and composition of this painting are consistent with and typical of the work of those Dutch artists who after study in Italy under the sway of the Carracci, Caravaggio and most significantly Adam Elsheimer, formed a loosely knit group in Amsterdam around Pieter Lastman, Moeyaert, and the Pynas brothers, who are collectively described as the Pre-Rembrandt school for their collective maturation of a style that bridged the span from Elsheimer’s generation in Rome to the young Rembrandt who would study with Lastman and perhaps Moeyaert in 1624, that is at the approximate date assigned this painting by Tümpel.
Indeed, Moeyaert would have numerous circumstantial connections with Rembrandt and both as a possible teacher and influence upon some of Rembrandt’s friends and followers including Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, long thought to have studied primarily with Rembrandt. However, in 2015 Eric Jan Sluiter plausibly suggested in Rembrandt’s Rivals that van den Eeckhout’s tyro efforts were instead under Moeyaert’s aegis. This shift does little harm to Rembrandt’s reputation, but further elevates Moeyaert’s stature as an Amsterdam master.
In that context, Sluijter’s well-reasoned, amply illustrated discussion of Moeyaert’s career and art supplements Tümple’s invaluable monograph up to date. In effect, Sluijter’s work serves as both a collation of proto catalogues of individual artists whose collective efforts constituted an entire branch of parochial art activities in Amsterdam and its neighbors. As a particularly relevant piece in this embracing taxonomic effort, Sluijter draws several significant inferences about Rembrandt’s continuing professional associations with Moeyaert and the Rembrandt follower Jacob de Wet
in 1640 when the three joined a consortium that invested money in the van Uylenburgh family’s art production and marketing enterprise (cf. Sluijter, p. 205; for the terms, participation and results of that venture cf. Friso Lammertse, “Gerrit Uylenburgh, Art Dealer and Painter in Amsterdam and London,” in Friso Lammertse and Jaap van der Veen, Uylenburgh & Son: Art and Commerce from Rembrandt to de Lairessse 1625 -1675, Zwolle, 2006, p.188 ff., “The 1640 Loan by a Consortium”.
