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 prototype for the version painted by Barent Fabritius. With the authorship of the Dresden work called into question, the authorship of the Budapest panel also becomes uncertain, especially since the sawed off figure of the angel was also thought to be Rembrandt's work. Sumowski attributes the panel from the Gerhardt Collection to Barent Fabritius in his large scale work, a compilation of the paintings of Rembrandt's pupils, but his discussion of it only appears in the supplementary volume. 36 He does not confirm his earlier supposition that it was the work of Abraham van Dijck, 37 and rules out the possibility that Rembrandt painted the angel fragment. 38 In fact, he even questions whether the two works once formed a whole based on stylistic aspects and the angel's position in the composition, although he acknowledges that without the angel the composition would be iconographically incomplete. A close study of the Budapest panel itself clearly shows that it had been cut: the panel, constructed of five vertical boards, was cut along the upper edge, while the other edges reveal several centimetres of thinning. 39 The original painting very likely did not show more of the angel than could be seen in the fragment, assuming that the dealer had indeed had it removed because he preferred this portion of the work. Examinations made with infrared camera do not show any repainting of the picture, which was painted alia prima with no underdrawings. In other words, there is no sign that the figure might have been full length, and that the panel was separated at the angel's feet. Thus, the artist was not entirely faithful to the biblical text according to which the angel rose from the flames. In this case, the figure perhaps would have been shown emerging from a cloud, similar to the angel in Nicolaes Maes' painting Abraham and Isaac. 40 There is no way, however, to prove this theory. On the other hand, it is likely that more of the unfolded wings may have been Sumowski 1983 (n. 19), vol. 5, 3095, no. 2066. W. Sumowski, "D. Pont: Barent Fabritius," Kunstchronik 12 (1959), 287-94, esp. 291. In the iconographical register, it is described as Angel Study by an unknown pupil or follower of Rembrandt. See Sumowski 1983 (n. 19), vol. 5, 3425. Among the works by unknown pupils of Rembrandt is The Supper at Emmaus (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 1753). In connection to the Christ figure's nimbus of stars, Sumowski states that Rembrandt did not paint such halos, and this motif appears only one other time in the works of Rembrandt's followers, in the Angel from the Schloss Collection, see ibid., vol. 4, 2098, no. 1961. I am indebted to András Fáy for his technical examinations. Nicolaes Maes, Abraham and Isaac, 1653-54, United States, private collection; see Rembrandt. A Genius and His Impact, ed. A. Blankert, exh. eat. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1997, 300-1, no. 64. We only find such a diversity of angels - full length or half4ength figures, facing outward, floating above or flying away from the altar, and glancing down at the couple or up at the sky - in renderings of Sacrifice of Manoah by artists belonging to the Rembrandt school. In Rembrandt's work, The Angel Departing from the Family of Tobias (Paris, Louvre), painted in 1637, the divine messenger has his back to the other figures and is flying upwards, a motif which was borrowed by Heemskerck in his etching of the same subject. This angel figure appears again, e.g., in the painting of Sacrifice of Manoah by Rembrandt's pupil Govaert Flinck (1640, Kingston, Queens University, Canada, Agnes Etherington Art Center). These two subjects had in fact already been depicted in a similar manner by Rembrandt's master, Pieter Lastman; see Im Lichte Rembrandts. Das Alte Testament im Goldenen Zeitalter der niederländischen Kunst, ed. Ch. Tümpel, exh. cat. Muenster, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and Zwolle 1994, 71-72.
