Bathseba im Bade

Alttestamentarischer Überlieferung zufolge (2 Sam 11) entdeckte König David von seinem Palast aus die schöne Bathseba beim Baden und ließ sie zu sich rufen. Als die verheiratete Bathseba ein Kind – den späteren König Salomo – von ihm erwartete, entsandte David ihren Mann Urija in der Schlacht um die Stadt Rabba an die vorderste Front, wo dieser im Kampf getötet wurde. Bathseba wurde daraufhin Davids zweite Frau.

Die in Clair-obscur-Technik auf farbig grundiertem Papier ausgeführte Federzeichnung zeigt die intime Badeszene originellerweise inmitten eines belebten Platzes vor einer fantastischen Stadtkulisse in jenem Moment, als die entblößte Bathseba von einer Dienerin das Schreiben Königs Davids entgegennimmt.

Die Komposition setzt sich aus mehreren zeitgenössischen Vorlagen von Antwerpener Manieristen zusammen – einer im ersten Drittel des 16. Jahrhunderts in Antwerpen tätigen Gruppe namentlich unbekannter Künstler, die Stilelemente des italienischen Manierismus aufgriffen und ihre Werke (von größtenteils biblischer Thematik) mit einer Fülle erzählerischer und dekorativer Details anreicherten. Die fantastische, reich dekorierte Architekturkulisse der Badeszene ist hierfür ebenso charakteristisch wie die extravaganten Kostüme der Damen rund um Bathseba. Die Zeichnung kann aus motivischen Gründen der Gruppe des Pseudo-Bles* zugeordnet werden (Van den Brink 2005) und diente anscheinend ihrerseits als Modellvorlage für einige in Tours tätige Buchmaler des 1520s Hours Workshop (Orth 1989), die Einzelfiguren aus der Komposition kopierten.

* Der Name basiert auf der einstigen fälschlichen Zuschreibung seiner Anbetung der Könige in der Münchner Alten Pinakothek an den ebenfalls in Antwerpen tätigen Maler Herri (Hendrick) met de Bles (um 1510 – um 1566).

Bosch, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt. Meisterwerke der Albertina, hg. von K. A. Schröder und C. Metzger, Albertina, Wien, Ostfildern 2013, Abb. 20, S. 44.

The city as stage for a burlesque show? A naked

woman confidently displays herself in her bathing

pool amid numerous onlookers and before the

backdrop of a lavishly decorated city. These are, of

course, not actual buildings but fantasy architecture

inspired by the Flemish Gothic. The beautiful

nude is the biblical Bathsheba, surrounded by

elegantly dressed ladies of the court, who are making

music and chatting. In this way, the intimate

bathing scene becomes a theatrical spectacle in the

midst of the city. To the left in the background, a

tiny King David can barely be discerned. According

to the biblical narrative,1 the king looked out the

window of his palace, discovered the beautiful

Bathsheba bathing, and had her brought to him.

The drawing depicts the moment when Bathsheba’s

servant hands her David’s invitation. When

Bathsheba becomes pregnant by the king, David

concocts a scheme to cover up the adultery. He

places her husband Uriah on the front lines in the

battle for Rabba, where Uriah is killed in combat.

Bathsheba then becomes David’s second wife.

The artist meticulously executed the pen-and-ink

drawing in a chiaroscuro technique on blue-green

prepared paper. The technique and style of the figures

and architecture place it among the so-called

Antwerp Mannerists.2 The Mannerists were a group

of primarily anonymous artists active in Antwerp

during the first third of the sixteenth century who

adopted stylistic aspects of Italian Mannerism

to enrich their works, largely devoted to biblical

themes, with a plethora of narrative and decorative

elements. The imagined, richly decorated architectural

backdrop is characteristic of the Antwerp

style. So, too, are the slender, coyly curved figures,

luxurious clothing, and extravagant headdresses of

the women surrounding Bathsheba. Such scenes as

Bathsheba Bathing, the Ecce Homo [30, 42], and the

Adoration of the Magi [27, 31, 39] were ideally suited

to civic, if wholly ahistorical settings. The Antwerp

Mannerists reconfigured biblical scenes in a

modern and attractive fashion that appealed to a

typically urban audience. The composition’s ingenuity

involves figures seen from behind to direct

the observer’s view, as well as a diagonal orientation

leading obliquely toward the picture plane. By such

means, even the contemporary viewer becomes

part of the audience, heightening the drawing’s

engagement.

Benesch was the first to emphasize the sheet’s

connection to the Antwerp Mannerists. On motivic

grounds, Van den Brink attributed the sheet to

the Pseudo-Blesius group,3 a name based upon an

Adoration of the Magi (today in the Alte Pinakothek,

Munich) formerly attributed to the painter Herri

met de Bles (c. 1510–c. 1566), who was also active

in Antwerp. As Orth demonstrated, the drawing

served as the model for several book illuminations

of the 1520s Hours Workshop active in France,

whose painters copied individual figures from the

composition.4

Beginning in the fifteenth century, Antwerp

experienced a tremendous economic boom, and

with its important seaport usurped Bruges’s role

as the leading commercial center in the Southern

Netherlands. The city did not just trade in exotic

and domestic wares. Works of art from Antwerp, the

metropolis on the Scheldt river, were internationally

prized and also exported. The Antwerp Mannerists

worked in a way that was so stylistically consistent

that their pieces became a recognizable “brand.”

The adoption of motifs from the Bathsheba drawing

abroad attests to artistic success that extended far

beyond the Mannerists’ native city.

 

1. 2 Samuel 11.

2. Van den Brink in Belkin and Van Hout 2005, 120–21, no. 45,

with notes 3–5 referring to several identical figures.

3. Van den Brink in Belkin and Van Hout 2005, 120–21, no. 45.

4. Orth 1989, 61, 79, 80–82, 88nn25, 34; see also Peters’s essay in

this volume.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 21