The recently-discovered work by this Dutch painter forms a magnificent trio with his paintings on the same subject in Berlin and Madrid.

Art history is a long series of coincidences. This painting, which came from an English collection, could have already made an appearance twice, and illustrated a host of books on Caravaggio. This is because it was exhibited at Christie’s in London in April 1913 and June 1918, but on both occasions the family, no doubt regretfully, decided not to auction it at a time when little was known about the artist’s corpus. But 106 years on, it’s a different story. Ter Brugghen, whose catalogue raisonné was published by Leonard Slatkes and Wayne Franits in 2007, has now been studied in much more depth, especially since an exhibition held in Modena exactly a year ago showed many of the works under the artist’s name for the first time. This exhibition attracted a great deal of attention not only because of the ideas put forward by the curators, but also because The Mocking of Christ from the Palais des Beaux-arts in Lille, previously listed as a copy and relegated to the reserves, had been restored and was exhibited as an original. A fine gift for French museums, as the Metropolitan Museum in New York recently acquired a spectacular, previously unseen Roman Charity from Carlo Orsi. It was an auspicious time: not only did the painter become better known, but some of his works also resurfaced. So it was almost child’s play for expert René Millet to situate this Esau Selling his Birthright in Ter Brugghen’s artistic career.

The painting is the culmination of the artist’s explorations of a theme he treated several times.

The Present and the Absent

The Utrecht Caravaggist School is one of the most spectacular and appealing, illustrating the spread of Caravaggio’s influence across Europe. Arriving in Rome a year after the master had gone into exile, Hendrick Ter Brugghen spent seven years studying Caravaggio’s work and that of his emulators. He returned to his native land in 1615, where, until his early death in 1629, he explored a personal interpretation of Caravaggio’s legacy, whose intonations were enriched from 1624 through the emulation of his Utrecht peers Gerrit Van Honthorst and Dirck Van Baburen, and their own appropriation of the lessons of this master. They had never met him, but they aspired to his genius in every brushstroke. Caravaggism ultimately involved a play on reflections with Caravaggio, but above all between the protagonists of the artists who followed in his footsteps. With Esau Selling his Birthright, those absent take on the same role as those present, and the present mingles with the future…as we’ll see. There are two well-known other versions of the same subject by the artist, now in the Gemäldegalerie and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections, which the catalogue raisonné authors date from 1626-1627. A third work should be added, considered by Leonard Slatkes and Wayne E. Franits as a copy, very probably by someone close to Ter Brugghen, of a painting by Bassano, now lost but known from several copies (Greenville, Bob Jones University Museum). For the two Ter Brugghen specialists, “the close relationship between the three Utrecht paintings and the Bassano composition suggests that Ter Brugghen and his anonymous assistant may have taken part in an artistic competition similar to one that took place in Leiden, in the workshop of Rembrandt and Jan Lievens – except that here the Bassano composition served as a starting point.” It is feasible to imagine that the original by the Venetian painter was kept in Ter Brugghen’s home. The story of the rivalry between the twins of Rebecca and Isaac inspired both the Genoese School – for instance, the more famous work by Gioacchino Assereto in Genoa’s Palazzo Bianco – and the Caravaggist School, Matthias Stomer in particular. Not everyone is familiar with the story. In a famine raging at the time, the elder twin, the red-haired Esau, returns home from a hunting trip weak and famished, and his deceitful younger brother Jacob, Rebecca’s favorite, persuades Esau to give up his birthright to him in exchange for a plate of lentils, without telling their father, who loved Esau. Two common expressions reflect the unconscious cultural roots of this episode in the Book of Genesis: “To sell your birthright for a mess of pottage” and “If you go hunting you’ll lose your place” (or, in English, “if you snooze you lose”). The second expression sums up the moral of the story, because later on, the dying Isaac asks Esau to go in search of game to cook the dish he loves one last time, so that Isaac can bless Esau before God. With Rebecca’s help, Jacob takes advantage of his brother’s absence to disguise himself with goat’s hair and deceive their father, who blesses him in Esau’s place.

Hendrick Ter Brugghen: from Ambition to Reinvention

The painting unearthed by René Millet, which has a more ambitious format than its companions in Berlin and Madrid, is the culmination of Ter Brugghen’s explorations of the subject, and most certainly dates from 1627, the same year Rubens visited him and was convinced that he was the greatest artist of the Utrecht School. With his brilliant compositional skills, as seen in Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene and her Maid (Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum), in which he reinvented the iconography of the saint, here he paints both episodes in the confrontation between Esau and Jacob. While presenting the scene around the dish of lentils, the work already contains the fateful moment of the bait. Ter Brugghen says it all through the inclination of the faces and hands, and the play on light and ”eloquent color”, to paraphrase the title of Jacqueline Lichtenstein’s famous book. Here, his figures seem to be carved in the round through his treatment of the candlelight. Esau’s robust build, the fatigue weighing him down and his lined forehead contrast with his more youthful and mischievous-looking twin in his scarlet cloak with its sumptuous drapery. Esau echoes the gestures of his father, an old, bent man, intent on the act of blessing. Turning to the left, Rebecca and her beloved son seem to be setting off in a different direction. The mother, even more devious than Jacob, hands an empty plate to her eldest child with lowered eyes. With her imperceptible smile and conniving look, she seems even more at fault than her favorite child, whom she encourages by her closeness and protective presence. She dominates the composition. The heart of the plot staged by Ter Brugghen is perhaps, and in the end above all, an indictment of maternal guilt. The work has yet to reveal all its secrets, or indeed all its qualities, as René Millet has decided to present it “as is”. The windows worked on by restorer Catherine Polnecq hold great promise for its future buyer, who will have every opportunity to restore the painting to its former glory. The blanched layers of varnish and paint on paintings sometimes whet the appetite for discovering the treasures hidden beneath. Esau’s two dogs, with similar coats but of different sizes, are a true mirror of the two brothers, whose presence, somewhat obscure today, will enrich our perception of the subject tomorrow.

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