Adriaen van der Werff
The repudiation of Hagar
Oil on canvas
87.6 x 69.1
Private collection
Hagar is a
biblical person in the Book of Genesis Chapter 16. She was an Egyptian handmaid
of Sarah, who gave her to Abraham "to wife" to bear a child. The
product of the union was Abraham's firstborn, Ishmael, the progenitor of the
Ishmaelites.
After Sarah gave birth to Isaac, and the tension
between the women returned. At a celebration after Isaac was weaned, Sarah
found the teenage Ishmael mocking her son, and demanded that Abraham send Hagar
and her son away. She declared that Ishmael would not share in Isaac's
inheritance. Abraham was greatly distressed but God told Abraham to do as his
wife commanded because God's promise would be carried out through both Isaac
and Ishmael.
The name Hagar originates from the Book of
Genesis, and is only alluded to in the Qur'an. She is considered Abraham's
second wife in the Islamic faith and acknowledged in all Abrahamic faiths. In
mainstream Christianity, she is considered a concubine to Abraham. More on Hagar
Adriaen van der Werff (21 January
1659 –
12 November 1722) was
an accomplished Dutch painter of portraits and erotic, devotional and
mythological scenes. His brother, Pieter van der Werff (1661–1722), was his principal
pupil and assistant.
At the age of ten he started to take lessons, two
years later moving in with Eglon van der Neer, specializing in clothes and
draperie. At the age of seventeen he founded his own studio in Rotterdam where
he later became the head of guild of Saint Luc. In 1696, he was paid a visit by
Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine and his wife, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici. The
couple ordered two paintings to be sent to Cosimo III of Tuscany, Anna Maria
Luisa's father, in Florence. During the next years Van der Werff traveled
regularly between Düsseldorf and his home town. In 1703, he became the official
court painter and a knight, when his former teacher and predecessor Van der
Neer died. Van der Werff, with a perfect technique, was paid extremely well by
the Elector for his biblical or classical (erotic) paintings. In 1705, he
painted a portrait of Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1716,
he lost his job when the Elector died because the treasury was empty.
Van der Werff became one of the most lauded Dutch
painters of his day, gaining a European reputation and an enormous fortune.
Arnold Houbraken, writing in 1718, considered him the greatest of the Dutch
painters and this was the prevailing critical opinion throughout the 18th
century: however, his reputation suffered in the 19th century, when he was
alleged to have betrayed the Dutch naturalistic tradition. In the Victorian Age
people could not appreciate his art, so most of his work went into the cellars
of the Alte Pinakothek.
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