The Levite at Gibeah

early 1640s

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout

Painter, Dutch, 1621 - 1674

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout

Attributed to

Four people, a dog, and a donkey are gathered next to a copse of trees and in front of a run-down town in the background in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale skin. To the left, a barefoot man with a long gray beard and a fur-trimmed cap stands holding a tool in one hand and his other extended toward the other people. He wears a loose white shirt, and a dagger hangs from the waist of his tan, knee-length pants. A brown and white dog sniffs, with head lowered, one of the man’s bare feet. The man’s face is heavily lined and he looks at the second man and a woman in the lower right quadrant of the painting with deep-set eyes. There, a man wearing a harvest-yellow robe under a red cape and a feathered, jeweled turban sits on a rock. He looks back at the first with his head resting in one hand and his other hand held up. This second man has chin-length, wavy brown hair and a dark blond mustache and thin beard. A rosette or other object is tied at his waist, and the hilt of a sword is visible behind his hip. The woman sits on the ground next to him, one arm draped over his lap. She wears a gray headscarf and a teal cloak over a golden yellow dress. The thumb on her other hand is hooked through the red, studded collar of a tiny gray dog in her lap. The dog bares its teeth at the first man. A wooden casket and a basket holding cloth and a jug are just behind the woman. Behind that are two donkeys and the fourth person, a clean-shaven man who peers over the donkeys’ backs at the seated man. Trees to the right grow up around a mostly hidden structure. Grasses and plants grow along the ruined rooflines of the town behind the first man. A bank of khaki-brown and carnation-pink clouds billow up in the sky above, which deepens from pale blue along the top of the canvas to pale petal pink along the horizon.

Media Options

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The subject of this painting is taken from the Old Testament book of Judges. After the Levite had married a woman of inferior status from Bethlehem, they quarreled and the concubine left him and returned to her father’s house. The Levite soon followed and retrieved her. On their journey home, they unsuccessfully searched the town of Gibeah for a place to sleep until finally a field laborer offered the couple lodging in his house. This is the moment depicted by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, who painted at least three versions of this scene.

Later that evening, according to the biblical account, a few men surrounded the laborer’s house threatening to harm the Levite. To placate the aggressors, the host instead offered them his own daughter and the concubine. In the end, only the concubine was pushed out the door and, after being raped repeatedly, she died of her injuries on the laborer’s doorstep. The next day, the Levite left Gibeah with the dead woman’s body strapped onto his donkey. Once home, the Levite cut the corpse into twelve pieces and sent one piece to each tribe of Israel, triggering a horrendous cycle of revenge killings. Despite the horrible aftermath of the laborer’s initial act of hospitality, Van den Eeckhout chose to focus on the moment when the laborer, acting as a Good Samaritan, invited the travelers into his home.

Van den Eeckhout was one of Rembrandt’s most talented and versatile pupils, and was probably a member of the master’s workshop from about 1635 to 1640 or 1641. His oeuvre includes history paintings, landscapes, portraits, and genre scenes, as well as etchings, drawings, designs for metal objects, and book illustrations. Although Van den Eeckhout achieved Rembrandtesque effects through a powerful use of light and shade, his manner of painting was smoother and more fluid than that of his teacher.


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Emile E. Wolf

  • Dimensions

    overall: 96.5 x 121.9 cm (38 x 48 in.)
    framed: 119.4 x 144.1 x 5.7 cm (47 x 56 3/4 x 2 1/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1996.99.1

More About this Artwork


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Art market, New York, 1960s;[1] purchased by Emile E. Wolf [1899-1996], New York; gift (partial and promised) 1996 to NGA; gift completed 2000.
[1] In a letter to Arthur Wheelock (15 January 1987, in NGA curatorial files), Emile E. Wolf writes that “Park Bernet sold it as anonynme [sic],” which might indicate he purchased the painting at an auction. Many Parke-Bernet sale catalogues for the 1960s have been checked, but as yet an auction that included the painting has not been identified.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1969

  • Rembrandt and His Pupils, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1969, no. 48.

1982

  • The Discovery of the Everyday: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings from the Wolf Collection, Chrysler Museum, Norfolk; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; Tampa Museum, 1982-1983, no. 11, repro.

Bibliography

1969

  • Stechow, Wolfgang. "Some Observations on Rembrandt and Lastman." Oud Holland 84, no. 1-4 (1969): 156, fig. 9.

  • Montreal Museum of Fine Art, and Art Gallery of Ontario. Rembrandt and his Pupils. Exh. cat. Montreal Museum of Fine Art; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Montreal, 1969: 84, no. 48.

  • Held, Julius S. "Die Ausstellung 'Rembrandt and his Pupils' in Montreal und Toronto." Pantheon 27 (September-October 1969): 386-395, fig. 2.

  • Rifkin, Benjamin A. "Rembrandt and His Circle, Part II." Art News 68 (6 October 1969): 33.

  • Rifkin, Benjamin A. "Rembrandt and His Circle, Part III." Art News (7 November 1969): 89.

1982

  • Robinson, Franklin W. The Discovery of the everyday: seventeenth century Dutch paintings from the Wolf Collection. Exh. cat. Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia; Tampa Museum; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. Norfolk, 1982: no. 11, color repro.

1983

  • Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden. 6 vols. Landau, 1983: 2:732, 788, no. 425, repro.

1987

  • Manuth, Volker. "The Levite and His Concubine." Hoogsteder-Naumann Mercury 6 (1987): 18.

Wikidata ID

Q20177177

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