A little known, but incredibly moving exhibition is currently on view this summer featuring a privately owned Rembrandt painting shown to the public only a handful of times. Generously loaned to this institution, the painting has sparked an exhibition.
The Frick Collection in New York City was the recent recipient of a remarkable loan from a private collection. Currently on view now through August 20 is Rembrandt van Rijn’s captivating and luminous “Abraham Entertaining the Angels” of 1646. Only shown a handful of times to the public, the generous loan sparked the Frick to mount “Divine Encounter” — a “tightly focused exhibition in which the painting appears alongside other depictions by Rembrandt of the Old Testament figure Abraham — a spectacular selection of prints and drawings from American and international collections,” the museum writes.
The show offers viewers a chance to understand Rembrandt’s approach to history painting and the artist’s shift towards religious subject matter from the late 1630s to the late 1650s. “In them,” the Frick continues, “the artist took a progressively deeper interest in the psychological content of the Abraham story, specifically the emotional experience of a father confronting the most magnificent of blessings and the most heartbreaking of losses. At the same time, Rembrandt also began to move away from the physicality and instantaneity of his earlier narrative work in favor of imagery characterized instead by an overwhelming sense of stillness and calm. These are the defining qualities of his 1646 ‘Abraham Entertaining the Angels,’ in which the momentous nature of the event depicted is conveyed solely through light and a single, gently raised hand.”
To learn more, visit The Frick Collection.
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