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Joseph Explaining His Dream to His Brothers
Antonio Tempesta (Italian, 1555–1630)
about 1600
Medium/Technique
Oil on alabaster
Dimensions
42.5 x 54.5 cm (16 3/4 x 21 7/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of the Margaret K. Koerner and Joseph Leo Koerner family
Accession Number2012.121
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Antonio Tempesta, best known as a prolific printmaker, also specialized in oil paintings on unusual stone supports. Here he presents a story from the Old Testament: Joseph recounts to his eleven brothers a dream in which the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him. The heavenly bodies were prophetic symbols of the power he would come to hold as ruler of Egypt. Joseph gestures up to a sun formed by the natural rings of the stone at the upper left. Tempesta transformed the veining of the alabaster into a rolling, restless landscape dotted with flocks of sheep, goats, and camels.
ProvenanceMartin Farqhuar Tupper (b. 1810– d. 1889), London. 1898, sold by J.D. Ichenhauser, London, to William Cornelius van Horne (b. 1843 – d. 1915), Montreal [see note 1]; until at least 1946, with the estate of William van Horne, Montreal. November 25, 1991, anonymous sale, Waddington’s, Toronto, lot 2030. 1994, sold by Stanley Moss and Co., Riverdale-on-Hudson, NY, to Joseph Koerner, London, and Cambridge, MA; 2012, gift of Joseph and Margaret Koerner to the MFA. (Accession Date: April 25, 2012)
NOTES:
[1] That this painting and its companion (MFA accession no. 2012.120) had belonged to Tupper and were purchased in 1898 from Ichenhauser is according to a label on the reverse of the painting. When they were auctioned in 1991 they were said in the catalogue to come from the estate of William van Horne. The majority of the van Horne collection remained intact and in Montreal until at least 1946.
NOTES:
[1] That this painting and its companion (MFA accession no. 2012.120) had belonged to Tupper and were purchased in 1898 from Ichenhauser is according to a label on the reverse of the painting. When they were auctioned in 1991 they were said in the catalogue to come from the estate of William van Horne. The majority of the van Horne collection remained intact and in Montreal until at least 1946.