Jacob impersonates his elder brother Esau in order to receive the blessing of their father Isaac, a scheme conceived by Rebecca, the blind man’s wife. Rembrandt made several drawings of the Old Testament subject in the 1640s, and a few of his pupils followed suit. In this case Van den Eeckhout emulates the master’s style more successfully than his gift for effective staging.

Forthcoming

Inscription: Signed and dated (lower center): G V -eeckhout / ANo [AN in monogram] 1642

?Elizabeth Hooft, widow of Wouter Valckenier, Amsterdam (until d. 1796; her estate sale, C. Blasius et al., Amsterdam, August 31–September 1, 1796, no. 10, for fl. 630); ?Pieter Nicolaas Simonsz. van Winter, Amsterdam (until d. 1807); ?his daughter, Anna Louisa Agatha van Winter, Amsterdam (1807–d. 1877; sold to Rothschild); ?Alphonse, Gustave, or Edmond de Rothschild, Paris (from 1877); Collis P. Huntington, New York (until d. 1900; life interest to his widow, Arabella D. Huntington, later [from 1913] Mrs. Henry E. Huntington, 1900–d. 1924; life interest to their son, Archer Milton Huntington, 1924–terminated in 1925)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Art of Rembrandt," January 21–?, 1942, no catalogue.

Hempstead, N.Y. Hofstra College. "Metropolitan Museum Masterpieces," June 26–September 1, 1952, no. 14.

New York. Jewish Museum. "The Hebrew Bible in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Art," February 18–March 24, 1963, no. 46.

Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Five Centuries of European Painting," May 16–October 26, 1963, unnumbered cat. (p. 26).

Art Institute of Chicago. "Rembrandt after Three Hundred Years," October 21–December 7, 1969, no. 45.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Rembrandt after Three Hundred Years," December 29, 1969–February 1, 1970, no. 45.

Detroit Institute of Arts. "Rembrandt after Three Hundred Years," February 24–April 5, 1970, no. 45.

Milwaukee Art Center. "The Bible through Dutch Eyes: From Genesis through the Apocrypha," April 9–May 23, 1976, no. 13.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Nederlands Zilver/Dutch Silver, 1580–1830," May 13–June 22, 1980, not in catalogue.

The Hague. Mauritshuis. "Great Dutch Paintings from America," September 28, 1990–January 13, 1991, no. 19.

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "Great Dutch Paintings from America," February 16–May 5, 1991, no. 19.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 10, 1995–January 7, 1996, no. 47.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18, 2007–January 6, 2008, no catalogue.

Bryson Burroughs. "The Collis P. Huntington Collection Comes to the Museum." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 20 (June 1925), p. 142, ill. p. 146.

Daniel Catton Rich. Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Etchings by Rembrandt and His Circle. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago, 1935, p. 24, under no. 16.

George Isarlov. "Rembrandt et son entourage." La renaissance 19 (1936), p. 34.

William M. Ivins Jr. "The Art of Rembrandt." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 37 (January 1942), pp. 3–4.

Heidi Heimann in The Bible in Art: Miniatures, Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures Inspired by the Old Testament. London, 1956, p. 212, pl. 55.

Werner Sumowski. "Nachträge zum Rembrandtjahr 1956." Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 7, no. 2 (1957/58), p. 239, fig. 127.

Werner Sumowski. "Gerbrand van den Eeckhout als Zeichner." Oud Holland 77, no. 1 (1962), pp. 11–12, includes it among paintings by Eeckhout that show the influence of Pieter Lastman.

Th. M. Duyvené de Wit-Klinkhamer. "Een vermaarde zilveren beker." Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 17 (1966), p. 91, fig. 13 (detail), notes that the painting includes a depiction of a silver ewer by Adam van Vianen [see Notes].

Bob Haak. Rembrandt: His Life, His Work, His Time. New York, [1969], p. 183, fig. 294.

J. Richard Judson in Rembrandt After Three Hundred Years. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. [Chicago], 1969, pp. 57–58, no. 45, ill. p. 129, relates it to a drawing of this subject by Rembrandt (ca. 1640–42; formerly Van Diemen collection, Berlin; Benesch III, cat. no. 507); tentatively includes a sale of April 24, 1737, The Hague, in the provenance of the picture.

R. Roy. "Studien zu Gerbrand van den Eeckhout." PhD diss., Universität Wien, 1972, pp. 7–9, 212, no. 11 [see Ref. Broos 1990].

A. Pigler. Barockthemen: Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Ikonographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. 2nd ed. [first ed. 1956]. Budapest, 1974, vol. 1, p. 60.

Alfred Bader. The Bible through Dutch Eyes: From Genesis through the Apocrypha. Exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Center. Milwaukee, 1976, pp. 36–37, no. 13, ill.

Reiner Haussherr. Rembrandts Jacobssegen: Überlegungen zur Deutung des Gemäldes in der Kasseler Galerie. Opladen, Germany, 1976, pp. 27–28, fig. 19.

Jacques Foucart in Gods, Saints & Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1980, p. 163.

Werner Sumowski. Drawings of the Rembrandt School. 3, New York, 1980, p. 1320, under no. 605, compares it with Eeckhout's drawing "David's Promise to Bathsheba" (MMA 41.187.4).

Ben Broos. "Rembrandt en tekenaars uit zijn omgeving." Oude tekeningen in het bezit van de Gemeentemusea van Amsterdam waaronder de collectie Fodor. 3, Amsterdam, 1981, p. 110, under no. 29.

Werner Sumowski. "G. van den Eeckhout–I. de Joudreville." Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 2, Landau/Pfalz, 1983–[94?], pp. 720, 726, no. 397, ill. p. 760 (color).

Werner Sumowski. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler. 6, Landau/Pfalz, 1983–[94?], p. 3600.

Peter C. Sutton. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1986, p. 183.

Jacques Foucart. Peintres rembranesques au Louvre. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Paris, 1988, p. 85.

Ben Broos. Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat., Mauritshuis. The Hague, 1990, pp. 224–28, no. 19, ill. (color), adds the sale of Elizabeth Valckenier-Hooft, Amsterdam, 1796, to the provenance of the picture, but also incorrectly includes the work in sales of 1921 and 1925.

Walter Liedtke. "Dutch Paintings in America: The Collectors and Their Ideals." Great Dutch Paintings from America. Exh. cat., Mauritshuis, The Hague. Zwolle, The Netherlands, 1990, p. 37.

Peter C. Sutton. Northern European Paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: From the Sixteenth through the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia, 1990, pp. 82–83 n. 17.

Walter Liedtke in "Paintings, Drawings, and Prints: Art-Historical Perspectives." Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2, New York, [1995], pp. 20, 22, 145, no. 47, ill.

Carolyn Logan in "Paintings, Drawings, and Prints: Art-Historical Perspectives." Rembrandt/Not Rembrandt in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Aspects of Connoisseurship. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2, New York, [1995], p. 197, under no. 83.

B. P. J. Broos in The Dictionary of Art. 9, New York, 1996, p. 742, fig. 1.

Timothy Schroder in The Dictionary of Art. 32, New York, 1996, p. 401.

Jean-Louis Gaillemin. "L'ornement sans nom." Connaissance des arts no. 537 (March 1997), pp. 96–97, ill. (color detail).

Ruud Priem. "The 'most excellent collection' of Lucretia Johanna van Winter: The Years 1809–22, with a Catalogue of the Works Purchased." Simiolus 25, no. 2/3 (1997), p. 219, no. 58, in a preliminary list of paintings from the collection of Pieter van Winter, includes "Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph," by Eeckhout, possibly this work.

V[olker]. Manuth in Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. 32, Munich, 2002, p. 236.

Walter Liedtke. Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, vol. 1, pp. 185–190, no. 42, colorpl. 42, fig. 47 (color detail); vol. 2, p. 910.

Esmée Quodbach. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65 (Summer 2007), p. 18.

The silver-gilt ewer on the table is by Adam van Vianen (1569–1627) and was made in Utrecht in 1614. It is now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. RBK 1976-75). It was renowned in the seventeenth century and appears in paintings by other Dutch artists of the time.