Joseph Selling Wheat to the People

1655 · Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham

religious

Breenbergh returned to Amsterdam from Italy by 1633. He crafted here meticulous Italianate settings for biblical themes such as this picture. He marked the city as Egyptian by his inclusion of an obelisk, but the church at upper right, in front of which Joseph authorizes the sale, faithfully copies a Roman church.

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About the Artist

Bartholomeus Breenbergh

1598 – 1657

Dutch painter, with Poelenburgh the leading pioneer of the taste for Italianate landscapes in the Netherlands. Breenbergh spent most of the 1620s in Italy and thereafter worked in Amsterdam. His style as a painter is very similar to Poelenburgh's, his biblical and mythological characters set in well-balanced views of the Roman Campagna, often complete with classical ruins. His drawings are much fresher and bolder, and have often passed under the name of Claude, as is the case with two examples in Christ Church, Oxford. Late in his career Breenbergh turned to figure painting.

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