Peter Anton von Verschaffelt, Flemish 1710-1793- David’s Promise to Bathsheba; pencil, pen and black ink, and watercolour on paper laid down on card, bears inscription 'Peter von Verschaffelt...' (on an old piece of paper glued to the mount...
Peter Anton von Verschaffelt, Flemish 1710-1793- David’s Promise to Bathsheba; pencil, pen and black ink, and watercolour on paper laid down on card, bears inscription 'Peter von Verschaffelt...' (on an old piece of paper glued to the mount verso), 18.4 x 23.2 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: The story goes that King David spied on Bathsheba, who was the wife of Uriah the Hittite of the King's army, while she was bathing. David made her pregnant and then wrote to Uriah's commander, telling him to put Uriah in the fiercest part of the battle. This order was carried out and Uriah was killed. David married Bathsheba, but their child did not survive. The present work depicts the moment, after this, when David promises to appoint their next son Solomon as the next king of Israel (I Kings, I, 15-20). Bathsheba’s robes fall slightly, exposing her breast, and reminding us of their sexual act and her subsequent loss of virtue in the eyes of society. The staging of the scene at David’s bedside is, too, a reminder of this, and the untidy drapery of the bed echoes Bathsheba’s dishevelled robes. The subject was famously treated around a hundred years earlier by Dutch painter Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-1674) - see the drawing of 1642-3 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [no.41.187.4] and the oil on canvas of 1646 in the National Gallery, Prague [no.O11684]. A sculptor and architect, Verschaffelt designed, among other works in Mannheim, Germany, the high altar of the Jesuit church (Jesuitenkirche), the arsenal and the Bretzenheim Palace, as well as the church Wallfahrtskirche Mariä Himmelfahrt in Oggersheim. In 1748, he received the prestigious commission to replace the damaged statue of the archangel Michael on the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome.
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Peter Anton von Verschaffelt, Flemish 1710-1793- David’s Promise to Bathsheba; pencil, pen and black ink, and watercolour on paper laid down on card, bears inscription 'Peter von Verschaffelt...' (on an old piece of paper glued to the mount verso), 18.4 x 23.2 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: The story goes that King David spied on Bathsheba, who was the wife of Uriah the Hittite of the King's army, while she was bathing. David made her pregnant and then wrote to Uriah's commander, telling him to put Uriah in the fiercest part of the battle. This order was carried out and Uriah was killed. David married Bathsheba, but their child did not survive. The present work depicts the moment, after this, when David promises to appoint their next son Solomon as the next king of Israel (I Kings, I, 15-20). Bathsheba’s robes fall slightly, exposing her breast, and reminding us of their sexual act and her subsequent loss of virtue in the eyes of society. The staging of the scene at David’s bedside is, too, a reminder of this, and the untidy drapery of the bed echoes Bathsheba’s dishevelled robes. The subject was famously treated around a hundred years earlier by Dutch painter Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-1674) - see the drawing of 1642-3 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [no.41.187.4] and the oil on canvas of 1646 in the National Gallery, Prague [no.O11684]. A sculptor and architect, Verschaffelt designed, among other works in Mannheim, Germany, the high altar of the Jesuit church (Jesuitenkirche), the arsenal and the Bretzenheim Palace, as well as the church Wallfahrtskirche Mariä Himmelfahrt in Oggersheim. In 1748, he received the prestigious commission to replace the damaged statue of the archangel Michael on the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome.
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