1670 - PAINTER OF THE XVII CENTURY

PAINTER OF THE XVII CENTURY King David and the Prophet Gad Oil on canvas, 93x126.5 cm The painting depicts a biblical theme that is iconographically very rare in art. King David is kneeling with joined hands before an altar where he is burning a calf for the sacrifice ordered by the prophet Gad, who stands on the left. Overhead flies St. Michael the Archangel with a skull and sword. In the background is a city and many dead on the ground because of the punishment God inflicted on the Jews with the plague because of David's sins. The scene is taken from an engraving in the "Theatrum Biblicum" edited by Claes Jansz Visscher. Visscher published a series of illustrated Bibles, the most important of which was Theatrum Biblicum that was printed several times between 1639 and 1674. The book contained hundreds of plates that were originally being engraved by Gerard de Jode and other great Flemish masters in the sixteenth century, and which Visscher reprints. In particular, the print of Gad and David had been designed by Maerten de Vos.