Kárpáti Zoltán - Liptay Éva - Varga Ágota szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 101. (Budapest, 2004)
JÚLIA TÁTRAI: The Return of Barent Fabritius's Sacrifice of Manoah to Hungary
the similarities in composition and use of colour are unmistakable. However, we are as unfamiliar with the original state of the Dresden picture as we are with that of the panel from the Gerhardt Collection. The two preliminary sketches made for the Dresden work - today preserved in Stockholm and Dresden - show that its master had in mind a composition extending much higher, ending in an arched top (fig. 50). 26 X-rays show that the rather weakly painted figure of the angel was added later, presumably when the format was changed. 27 Sumowski in his commentary on the Rembrandt exhibitions of 1956 amends Saxl's statements concerning the picture from the Gerhardt Collection. 28 He writes that a portion of the sawed off angel figure was in the former Strasser Collection in Vienna, and that the angel's position facing outward was typical among Rembrandt's pupils, noting Flinck and Köninck as examples. 29 Although he points out that an accurate reconstruction is no longer possible, he believes that, given the measurements of the two pictures, together they would have formed an upright composition, similar to that in the Stockholm and Dresden drawings. In the Dresden painting, not only Rembrandt's signature, but also the date of 1641 next to it has been problematic for Rembrandt scholars for some time, 30 since the drawings associated with the picture, including, in addition to the two mentioned above, one from Winterthur, were clearly executed in the 1650s. 31 Setting aside theories to explain the contradictions, Kenneth Clarke simply cut the Gordian knot: "[...] it seems to me that only one answer is convincing: that the Dresden Manoah was not painted in 1641, and is not by Rembrandt." 32 Over time, art historical scholarship has transferred the Dresden painting and its preliminary studies from the opus of Rembrandt to that of Willem Drost, 33 although now this attribution has likewise come into question. 34 26 O. Benesch, The Drawings of Rembrandt, vol. 5, London 1957, no. 974, fig. 1188 (Dresden, Kupferstichkabinett) and no. 975, fig. 1189 (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum). Both drawings are considered works by Rembrandt circa 1655. 27 The format was certainly changed before 1757, since the print then published by Jacobus Houbraken shows the present composition in A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 3, ed. J. Bruyn et al, Dordrecht, Boston, and London 1989, no. C 83, 530. 28 W. Sumowski, "Nachträge zum Rembrandtjahr 1956," Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin. Gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 7 (1957-58), 223-78. 29 We can see a three-quarter length figure of an angel facing forward and rising from the sacrificial flame in Govacrt Flinck's painting of Manoah s Sacrifice, circa 1654, New York private collection, currently displayed at Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas; see Sumowski 1983 (n. 19) vol. 2, 1317, no. 834, as a work by Van Hoogstraeten. 30 J. Bruyn, "Review of W. Sumowski: Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler 1," Oud Holland 98 (1984), 146-62, especially 153-58; A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings 1989 (n. 27), vol. 3, no. C 83, 523-32. 31 Benesch 1957 (n. 26), vol. 5, no. 976, fig. 1195 as a work by Rembrandt from ca. 1655, (Winterthur, Sammlung Dr. Otto Reinhart). Unlike the drawings in Dresden and Stockholm, this drawing has a horizontal format, and the composition ends in a straight edge. Above the altar, only the legs of the angel can be seen. Of the three drawings, this shows the most similarities to the Dresden picture. 32 K. Clark, Rembrandt and the Italian Renaissance. London 1966, 156-57. 33 Bruyn 1984 (n. 30), 154. 34 J. Bikker, "Willem Drost," in Saur Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, vol. 29, Munich and Leipzig 2001, 497-98.
