Please enable JavaScript in your browser.

Battle of the Israelites and the Amalekites

Battle of the Israelites and the Amalekites

Object type Painting
Genre Religious
Date ca. 1602
Dimensions 40.5 x 61.5 cm
Support Panel
Medium Oil
Our attribution Jan Brueghel the Elder
Other authorities Ertz 2008-10, #548
Ertz 1979, #87
Location Dresden, Germany
Collection Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Accession numbers inv. #897
Tags Battle, Horse, Field, Forest, Mountain, Soldiers, Old Testament
Ertz 1979, cat. #48, Fig. 566
Niedhart in Essen 1997, cat. #69, pp. 243-47
Ertz 2008-10, cat. #548, pp. 1186-90
1707 Dresden Described in "Specificatio" of Tobias Beutel as "Moses und Aaron"
1817 Dresden Dresden Collection Catalog, 1817
E.A. Honig
October 12, 2012

For further information on this painting, please see the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden webpage on this painting.

E.A. Honig
October 12, 2012

Narrative is from Exodus, 17:8-13.

Note that in the sale of Jan's estate there is listed "Een slach van Senacrip van vader selfs gedaen" -- so there was another Old Testament battle scene, that one from II Kings 17-19. It is also possible that the picture in Jan's sale is the present work and was just misidentified there. See Denuce, Brieven en documenten, 141. Jan's colleague Frans Francken also painted Old Testament battle scenes, and the subject can also sometimes be found in 16th and 17th-century Antwerp inventories.