Object data
oil on panel
support: height 33.4 cm × width 54.9 cm
outer size: depth 6 cm (support incl. frame)
Nicolaes de Giselaer
The Archangel Gabriel Appearing to Zacharias (Luke 1:11)
1625
Inscriptions
- signature and date, lower left on the base of the column (N and D ligated): 1625 / ND GIS[.]LAER F[...].
Technical notes
The support is an oak panel consisting of two horizontally grained planks, and is slightly bevelled on the left and right edges. The tiled floor was underdrawn, and fine, precise lines of the underdrawing are also visible in the architecture. The lines converge on the vanishing point behind the back of the priest in the background, which is marked by a hole on the surface. The composition was painstakingly built up and detailed, with one salient feature being the rather coarse brushstrokes in the large surfaces of the architecture. There is a pentimento to the left of the base of the column bearing the artist’s signature. The figures were painted on top of the architecture.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 6 June 2005
Condition
Fair. There are two small horizontal cracks in the upper right corner of the panel. The paint layers are severely abraded. The architecture shows through the figures due to abrasion and the increased transparency of the paint layers. There are a number of losses in the altar in the background. The varnish is discoloured.
Provenance
...; donated to the museum by Dr Abraham Bredius (1855-1946), The Hague, 17 July 1890;1 on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, since 18 February 2002
Object number: SK-A-1527
Credit line: Gift of A. Bredius, The Hague
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Nicolaes de Giselaer (Dordrecht 1583 - ? Utrecht 1645/46)
Nicolaes De Giselaer was born in Dordrecht in 1583. His teacher’s name is not known. He married in Amsterdam on 24 March 1616, and in that or the next year he joined the Guild of St Luke in Utrecht, the city where he probably lived for the rest of his life. It emerges from the payments of the interest on the mortgage he had taken out with a foundation created by Hubrecht Ewout van Buchell that he died in 1645 or 1646.
De Giselaer worked primarily as an architectural painter of both interiors and exteriors, generally featuring biblical figures. One exception is a genre piece in Groningen.2 His earliest dated painting is an interior of 1621 in the manner of Bartholomeus van Bassen.3 He rarely dated his paintings after 1626.
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
References
Muller 1880, pp. 104, 155; Thieme/Becker XV, 1922, p. 378; Helmus in coll. cat. Utrecht 1999, II, p. 892
Entry
As with most of De Giselaer’s architectural paintings, the figures in this one are taken from the Bible. The annunciation of the archangel Gabriel to Zacharias is taking place in the middleground. According to St Luke, Zacharias went into the temple to burn incense while the people prayed outside. An angel then appeared in the temple to announce that his wife would bear him a son, John, the later John the Baptist.4 This subject, which was not a standard one in 17th-century Dutch painting, is depicted at least three times in De Giselaer’s oeuvre. In addition to this panel of 1625 there are undated works in Utrecht5 and in a private collection.6 The compositions and staffage of the other two works with this subject are comparable to the painting in Amsterdam, but where they have a view through to the choir of a Gothic church, this one is built in a Renaissance style.
It is not clear to what extent De Giselaer was responsible for the staffage in his paintings. It is believed that the figures in the Utrecht panel are the work of Cornelis van Poelenburch, his fellow townsman.7 The figures in the background in the Rijksmuseum painting are in any event related to Van Poelenburch’s types.
There was a painting by De Giselaer of this subject in Stadholder Frederik Hendrik’s collection in 1632 and in 1654-68.8 Montias assumed that this is the work now in the Rijksmuseum,9 but it could also have been one of the other versions. It is equally uncertain whether a history painting that was auctioned in Paris in 1817 is identical with the one in the Rijksmuseum.10
Gerdien Wuestman, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 87.
Literature
Jantzen 1910, p. 162, no. 160c; Jantzen 1979, p. 224, no. 160*
Collection catalogues
1890, p. 52, no. 419a; 1903, p. 106, no. 982; 1976, p. 243, no. 1527; 2007, no. 87
Citation
G. Wuestman, 2007, 'Nicolaes de Giselaer, The Archangel Gabriel Appearing to Zacharias (Luke 1:11), 1625', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8501
(accessed 8 October 2024 06:44:02).