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King David Receiving the Cistern Water of Bethlehem
Master of the Antwerp Adoration Group (Netherlandish, active c. 1520)
1515–20
- Medium
- Oil on panel transferred to canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 73.5 × 27.5 cm (28 7/8 × 10 7/8 in.); Framed: 79.7 × 33.4 × 5.1 cm (31 3/8 × 13 1/8 × 2 in.)
- Culture
- Belgium
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. Charles L. Hutchinson
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This scene and that of King Solomon Receiving the Queen of Sheba are particularly fine examples of the decorative style practiced in Antwerp by a group of largely anonymous artists now dubbed Antwerp Mannerists. The paintings originally formed the interior of the wings of a folding triptych with the Adoration of the Magi as its center. Both show gifts being presented to a ruler on his throne and would have been understood as Old Testament prefigurations of the submission of the nations to Christ as king, the theme of the lost Adoration panel. They also provided an excuse for the artist to depict exotic costumes, architecture, and luxury goods—the hallmarks of the Antwerp Mannerist style.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
