VICTORS, Jan

For long time it was thought that the painting represents Jacob and Laban. However, in 1987 the subject was identified as Abraham’s departure for Canaan, leaving his nephew Lot and his family, who will set off for Sodom. This subject from the Genesis is rarely treated in art.

The painting has a pendant, signed and dated 1653, in the form of a scene depicting Ruth Swearing her Allegiance to Naomi (Book of Ruth, 1: 15-17), now in a private collection in New York.

Victors has painted here a typical scene of rural life in a riverside village. The ferryboat carries a peasant and his cattle, so that the huge bulk of a cow stands uneasily in such a small and lightweight craft. The indifferent attitude of the peasant, who leans on the cow, sheep surrounding his feet, indicates that this trip is an everyday necessity. In another boat on the left-hand side a boy teases the ducks in the water’s shallows, much to the amusement of his companion. The painting contrasts the peasants with the horseman on the right-hand side. This man, probably a soldier, is fashionably dressed and groomed, and his horse looks strong and sleek. The peasants, in comparison, wear grubby and worn clothing and the cow looks thin and slightly ungainly. In the painting Victors depicts and contrasts two different aspects of contemporary Dutch society.

While he did paint portraits and secular subjects, Victors became best known for his grandiose and eloquent portrayals of Biblical subjects, most often drawn from the Old Testament.

Religious paintings constitute a significant part of Victors oeuvre. The artist only painted scenes from the Old Testament, which distinguishes him from the contemporary Dutch painters who, although as Protestants, more often undertook the Old Testament theme, but did not give up completely from the Christological themes. The painter was more interested in the didactic pronunciation of the work than its artistic value; he calls to mind Pieter Lastman, who, apart from Rembrandt and Govert Flinck, had perhaps the greatest influence on his art.

This painting was painted about 1650 but the style and manner of presentation are those of an earlier period. This was the beginning of the great period of middle-class genre painting when artists were developing a style quite different from Victor’s over-familiar anecdotical approach.

The market-place is in fact limited to the quack’s table with an awning over it, and the group of simple people crowding round the stall. The church and houses round the market-square are outlined behind the group of onlookers and the village street with figures can be seen in the distance. The peasant sitting barefooted, one of his shoes discarded beside him, the charlatan in his finery, and the colourful company of villagers around them are characters in an anecdotical story which is indeed worthy of the painter’s brush. Victors was a pupil of Rembrandt, and his figures are clearly derivative but they are smooth and superficial compared with the character studies of the great master.

The present portrait is actually a so-called ‘portrait histori�’, a real portrait of a sitter shown as a historic figure, in this case as Jonathan. The biblical figure of Jonathan is described in the Bible, in the Old Testament, in book 1 of Samuel. He was the son of King Saul and a close friend of King David.

The subject is taken from the Book of Ruth in the Old Testament. Naomi of Bethlehem was the Moabite Ruth’s mother-in-law.

The painting is a pendant to a painting in the Muzeum £azienki Kr�lewskie, Warsaw. It is signed and dated top right: J . Victors / 1653.

Calvinist collectors in the Dutch Republic were often especially interested in Old Testament paintings, as Calvin has advocated careful study of the biblical narrative. Jan Victors, who painted mostly Old Testament scenes, apparently made them primarily for Calvinist patrons. His large pictures of Old Testament subjects are distinctly related to Rembrandt’s biblical pictures done after the mid-thirties; his paintings of tradesmen and rural genre scenes are more personal.

In this scene the Jewish heroine Esther, wife of the Persian King Ahasuerus, notifies her husband of the plans of his advisor Haman, here seen at left, who has schemed to massacre the Jews in the Persian empire.

In this genre scene Jan Victors depicts the jovial community spirit of Dutch rural life. He contrasts the elegant formality of the townsfolk to the humble earthiness of the villagers.