Adriaen Van Stalbemt - Abraham and the Sacrifice of His Son Isaac

Adriaen van Stalbemt (Stalbempt) 1580-1662

Abraham and the Sacrifice of His Son Isaac “Das Opfer des Abraham”

According to the Old Testament, God put Abraham’s faith to the test by commanding him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Just in the nick of time, an angel of the Lord appeared, forestalling the terrible deed and delivering Abraham from his despair.

Certificate: Dr. Klaus Ertz, signed and dated Lingen 22 December 2020.
The certificate is written in German, below we have published part of the text translated into English:
Is known to me in the original. After thorough examination of this painting, I am convinced that it was painted by the Flemish painter Adriaen van Stalbemt.
The state of preservation of this painting can be described as very good.
Adriaen van Stalbemt, next to Jan Brueghel the Younger probably the most important successor of Jan Brueghel the Elder, took up many of Brueghel's themes and developed them further. Like many of his contemporaries, Stalbemt followed the example of this great role model. At the age of 29 he converted to the Catholic faith. It goes without saying that a painter in Antwerp had to be familiar with the themes of the Christian religion, since it was necessary to fulfill the wishes of his customers. The design of the spatial composition, reminiscent of the early David Vinckboons, which features juxtaposed landscape sections - on the left the dark foreground, on the right the background illuminated by the sun - indicates that this is an early painting, painted during the period from 1605 to 1610. In this painting, Stalbemt reveals himself to be a great artist who was able to skillfully combine different landscape formations such as forest, river and mountains at an early stage of his career. In interlacing all of these landscape parts into one perspective, this composition is very typical of Adriaen van Stalbemt's work.

Literature: Ertz/Nitze-Ertz, Adriaen van Stalbemt, Kritischer Katalog der Gemälde, Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik Lingen 2018.

oil on copper
picture size 8.07 x 9.96 inches (20.5 x 25.3 cm)
frame 14.17 x 15.94 inches (36 x 40.5 cm)
note: Important changes in the composition have been found with an IR camera, please contact us if you want to see the result from those images.

Provenance: Private collection Bavaria (Germany)