The adoration of the Magi, Joris Fransz van Schooten, 1646 – (Joris Fransz Van Schooten) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Joris Fransz Van Schooten

Date: 1646

Size: 153 x 189 cm

Technique: Oil On Canvas

Of the handful of history paintings Van Schooten is known to have painted, this Adoration of the Magi is the latest in date. Executed in 1646, the painting is remarkably old-fashioned. The figure types, especially that of the youngest king, Caspar, who stands to the right of centre, and the rather robust figure of Mary, recall the work of Pieter Lastman, who had already been dead for more than a decade when Van Schooten finished this work. The Roman architecture and bright colouring also point to Lastman’s influence. Van Schooten’s picture, however, cannot be said to be based directly on a known work by Lastman, as the Amsterdam artist does not seem to have treated the subject of the Adoration of the Magi. It may have been by way of the younger Leiden history painters, Rembrandt and Jan Lievens (the latter being Van Schooten’s pupil) that Van Schooten came into contact with Lastman’s art. One aspect of the present painting, the repoussoir figure of Balthasar cast in heavy shadow, was probably derived from Rembrandt and Lievens’s example, rather than that of Lastman. Examples of such repoussoir figures can be found in Rembrandt’s early painted oeuvre, executed in Leiden, including the 1625 Stoning of St Stephen and David with the Head of Goliath before Saul from two years later.5 Lievens apparently used such repoussoirs only in his drawings, such as that of Mucius Scaevola and Porsenna from around 1626.6 Van Schooten had already used this compositional device in 1639-40 for two of the works he executed for the Lutheran church in Leiden. A charming aspect of Van Schooten’s Adoration is the partially concealed faces that peer out at the viewer, including that of the page behind the figure of Caspar and the Christ Child. That the latter is shown frontally, directly engaging the viewer, rather than in profile, is only one of the unusual features of Van Schooten’s painting. Another is the prominent role given to Joseph, who is shown presenting the child to the oldest king, Melchior, while the Virgin holds the gift of gold coins. Joseph is usually given a much more subordinate role in depictions of the Adoration of the Magi, sometimes appearing only as a minuscule figure in the background. Significantly, in Van Schooten’s Adoration of the Shepherds, painted for the Lutheran church some six years earlier, it is also Joseph and not Mary who presents the Christ Child.7 Jonathan Bikker, 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. 272.