Scripture Story Woman Asked to Feed Prophet Making Last Meal for Her and Her Son
The Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath illustrates the passage in 1 Kings 17:8–24 that recounts how the Lord led the prophet Elijah to Zarephath, where he met a widow and her son gathering sticks.
I would like to thank Sohee Kim for her assistance in researching this entry.
I would like to thank the Reverend Steven Rich for his explanations about the biblical significance of this story (correspondence December 8 and 9, 2009, in the NGA curatorial files). See Christian Tümpel, Het Oude Testament in de Schilderkunst van de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam, 1991), 101.
It is not known whether this painting still exists.
In Poelenburch's painting the meeting of the prophet, shown wrapped in a red robe, and the widow, who kneels before him, occurs near the end of the day under cerulean blue skies. Light spreading across the parched and barren terrain illuminates their forms, as well as those of other, more distant travelers who pass through a landscape dotted with clusters of ancient ruins atop small hills or nestled against rock outcroppings. Although most of these structures are imaginary evocations of ruins Poelenburch had seen on his travels through the Roman campagna, the large shaded ruin in the foreground left, with its precariously balanced pediment, is based on the Temple of Castor and Pollux from the Roman Forum, a ruin that Poelenburch depicted often in his works.
Poelenburch first depicted this ruin in Shepherds with their Flocks in a Landscape with Roman Ruins, c. c. 1620, oil on copper, 12 ½ x 15 ¾ in., Royal Collection. See: Treasures from the Royal Collection: The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace (London, 1988), 72, no. 54.
Poelenburch continued to paint biblical scenes in Italianate landscapes even after he returned to Utrecht in the mid-1620s, making it difficult to date his paintings. The restrained poses and gestures of the figures in this work, which reflect the influence of
Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598–1657) followed the same pictorial tradition in his Landscape with Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath, 1656, oil on panel, 69.5 x 92 cm, The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (inv. 6158).
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
Source: https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.131041.html
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