The Prophet Esdras and the Archangel Uriel on Mount Sion (4 Esdras 2:42-48)

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Specifications

Title	The Prophet Esdras and the Archangel Uriel on Mount Sion (4 Esdras 2:42-48)
Material and technique	Black chalk (faint traces), pen and brown gray ink, brown and gray wash, indented for transfer; cadre in pen in brown ink
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 190 mm Width 392 mm
Artists	Draughtsman: Maerten de Vos
Accession number	MB 2007/T 8 (PK)
Credits	Gift Dr N. de Roy van Zuydewijn, 2007 (in memory of her husband Drs. A.W.F.M. Meij)
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	2007
Creation date	in 1582
Signature	‘M.D: Vos.F. / 1582’ signed and dated (at lower left, in pen and brown ink)
Condition	the paper is thin and fragile, discoloured throughout, repairs along the lower margin, small hole in the lower right corner
Inscriptions	none
Mark	none
Provenance	Sale, London (Sotheby’s), 6 July 1992, lot 73; Sale London (Sotheby's) 4 July 2007, no. 21, to the museum, with funding of Dr. Noortje de Roy van Zuydewijn, Rotterdam, in memory of her late husband A.W.F.M. (Bram) Meij, former print room curator Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Rotterdam 2007 (coll 1 kw 4)
Research	Show research Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Literature	Hollstein XLIV, 1996, p. 45, under no. 162; Elen 2008a, pp. 13-14, col.ill.
Material	Pen > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Grey ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Black chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Brown ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Technique	Indenting > Indented > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique Indenting > Indented > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique Brown wash > Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique Grey wash > Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique
Geographical origin	The Netherlands > Western Europe > Europe

Entry catalogue Netherlandish Drawings of the 15th and 16th Centuries.

Author: Albert J. Elen

This drawing is the design for the first print (in mirror image)¹ in a series of four scenes from the apocryphal fourth book of Esdras (fig. 1).² The prints, of which the engraver is unknown, were used in the Thesaurus Sacrarum Historiarum, a picture bible composed of several print series published by Gerard de Jode in Antwerp in 1585,³ for which thirteen other artists, including Maarten van Heemskerck and Hans Bol, also contributed designs.⁴

Thirty years after the fall of Jerusalem in 557 BC, Esdras sees seven visions announcing the end of the world – the Apocalypse. The visions of Esdras are described at length and explained in the apocryphal fourth book of Esdras. Maarten de Vos apparently chose to depict the four most evocative scenes. The present drawing depicts the prophet Esdras on the holy Mount Sion (Jerusalem) who sees a multitude of people looking up to a young man on a hill. He crowns the people and hands out palm branches. The angel tells Esdras that these people have exchanged the robes of mortality for those of immortality and that the young man in their midst is the Son of God.

[caption id="attachment_14318" width="800" align="alignleft"]

afb. 1 Anonymous engraver after Maarten de Vos. The Prophet Esdras and the Archangel Uriel on Mount Sion, 1585. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv. no. L 1963/61 a[/caption]

Footnotes

¹ Hollstein XLIV, 1996, pp. 44-45, nos. 162-165, ill.; the print after the Rotterdam drawing is no. 162. The designs for the second and the third print are in resp. Brussels (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, coll. De Grez, inv. no 4060/3929) and Pavia (Museo Civico, inv. no. 286).

² The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen owns a complete set of this print series (numbered 1-4 and each with a one line Latin caption in the margin), inv. nos. L 1963/61a-d (Hollstein XLIV, 1996, nos. 162-165), of which inv. no. L 1963/61a corresponds with this drawing.

³ Maarten de Vos contributed designs for 58 of a total of 213 prints, which is about a quarter of the Thesaurus; Zweite 1980, pp. 186-189. The Esra prints were afterwards also used in the Theatrum biblicum published by Claes Jansz. Visscher in 1639, 1643 and 1674, as well as in his Grooten figure-bibel , published in 1646.

⁴ P. van der Coelen, Patriarchs, Angels & Prophets. The Old testament in Netherlandish Printmaking from Lucas van Leyden to Rembrandt (Studies in Dutch Graphic Arts, vol. II), Amsterdam 1996, pp. 15-19.

Show research Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

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