Abraham Bloemaert
Dordrecht 1564-1651 Utrecht

Adoration of the Magi

Pen and brown ink and red / brown wash over black chalk heightened with white, squared in black chalk, incised for transfer
285 x 360 mm; 11 1/4 x 14 1/4 in

ENGRAVED
By Girolamo Frezza, 1692, the print inscribed, P.P. Rubens pinxit (Marcel Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and his Sons, Paintings and Prints, Ghent, 1993, fig. 544).

Bloemaert completed his magnificent painting of the Adoration of the Magi in 1624. This can now be found in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht. There is also a contemporary studio copy which repeats the Utrecht picture with the addition of a standing page-boy in a turban, and the heads of two young women, who appear at the far right of the composition. The original destination for Bloemaert's painting was possibly a church or private patron in Utrecht. According to Roethlisberger, details of the painting - specifically the embroidered robe of the central kneeling king - would have had special significance for an Utrecht audience. The painting was first recorded in the mid-nineteenth century with an Utrecht family, van Sevenhoven, although it is likely to have been in their possession for a considerable time before.

The relationship between the painting, the print and this drawing seems simple enough - Bloemaert wished to make a reproductive print of the painting, an activity from which he derived a considerable part of his income, and therefore made this drawing for the use of the engraver. The outlines have been incised, the print is in the reverse sense, and the size of the sheet matches that of the print. However, there is a lapse of almost seventy years between the drawing and the print. The engraver in this case is the Roman artist, Girolamo Frezza, who was active from circa 1680. He made prints of four other Bloemaert drawings, but never travelled to the Netherlands, and made no other prints after Northern artists. As Roethlisberger says, "The circumstances behind the prints eludes us."

The answer may lie in the links between Frezza and Bloemaert's son, Cornelis, who moved to Rome in 1633 and remained there until his death in 1692. Frezza's teacher, Arnold van Westerhout, came from Bloemaert's home town of Utrecht, but settled in Rome for a few years in the early 1680s, when Frezza became his pupil. Westerhout lodged at that time in Cornelis Bloemaert's house, and it is there that Frezza may have come into contact with this drawing. Frezza followed the outlines of this drawing precisely, but added the unconvincing sky and angels above, and the lifeless foreground below, in order to create a vertical format.

A further question arises from the fact that Bloemaert has included in this drawing the two hatted or turbanned figures at the extreme right of the composition who are absent from the Utrecht painting, but do appear in the print and in the studio version. Roethlisberger's argument that the Utrecht painting has not been cut and never included these additional parties is somewhat challenged by the rediscovery of this drawing, which clearly shows them as part of the original whole. The fragmentary half of the standing, turbanned servant at the right hand edge of the canvas in Utrecht would tend to support this idea.

Absent from the print is the donor, whose portrait can be seen in both versions of the painting between the heads of the two standing Kings. The donor's head can also be seen sketched into the drawing, without much conviction, given that its inclusion in the print would have been by no means an obligation on Bloemaert's part, and even less on the part of Frezza.