(Antwerp 1581–1642)
(Antwerp 1590/92–1632)
The Crossing of the Red Sea,
inscribed on the reverse: ft ff (fecit Frans Francken),
oil on panel, 93 x 123 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Pascal Berquat, Châteaudun, 22 June 1980, lot 98;
Private collection, Orléans, until circa 2018

We are grateful to Ursula Härting, for confirming the attribution of the present painting to Frans Francken II and Ambrosius Francken II. A written certificate (January 2019) is available.

Ursula Härting writes: ‘The painting The Israelites after the Crossing of the Red Sea, a relatively large composition in the oeuvre of Frans Francken II, is the result of a collaboration between the two brothers Frans Francken II and Ambrosius Francken II. Frans Francken II is now one of the best-known painters of small figures active in Flemish Antwerp in Rubens’s age. His talented younger brother Ambrosius II was likewise an artist specialised in painting small figures. Here Frans II, who conceived the composition, shows the camp of the rescued Israelites on the coast of the Red Sea. About six hundred thousand men, besides the women and children, had escaped on foot from the slavery the Egyptians had imposed on them. God had guided them in the guise of a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud, parting the sea so that they could flee from the Pharaoh’s troops without wetting their feet. Then Moses, who can be seen here on the seashore on the right-hand side holding the staff with his outstretched arm, made sure that the masses of water would close in on the persecutors. What is typical here is Frans Francken’s fidelity to the text of the Old Testament. The standing figure in the middle foreground wearing a turban and carrying a dagger and staff is probably Aaron, the elder brother of Moses. He assisted Moses in freeing the Israelites from their Egyptian slavery (Exodus 7–8). A stylistic feature characteristic of Frans II is the way in which he depicts several groups of men and women debating with expansive gestures amidst crowds of figures; they are all imaginatively dressed in exotic contemporary and antique costumes, with the colours and glazing technique speaking in favour of an execution of the painting around 1630. Exhibiting the biblical animals in the form of a camel, two parrots, and a donkey, all of them reminiscent of Brueghel and true to life, is also typical of Frans Francken II. The travelling Israelites on the cliffs above the camp and the youths on the monolithic rock at the front were painted by Ambrosius II, whose authorship is confirmed by the loose and more impasto brushwork, the tousled hair of the children and men, and the wide-brimmed hats set askew […]. This painting, which was made with the assistance of his talented and previously underestimated brother Ambrosius Francken II, presents itself as an absolutely characteristic and genre-like composition in the oeuvre of Frans II.’

Technical analysis:

The painting shows a remarkable aptitude in the use of colour to define the different levels of the landscape, the figures in the foreground and in the distance, working with darker tones for the latter ones, intensifying the ochres and greys, together with blue-greenish azurite for the vegetation. The mineral pigment azurite is the prevalent blue employed in this work, also mixed with yellow to obtain green hues, as usual for Frans Francken II and other painters of the Antwerp school, while a certain range of red tones is achieved by red lakes and bright vermillion. The presence of discoloured smalt blue is discernible in the sky and against the pale brownish colour of the Red Sea and its waves.

Infrared reflectography reveals a large part of the underdrawing, perhaps the most important technical revelation about the present painting: this drawing is thin, linear and very free, traced freehand, without evidence of transference from a drawing on paper despite the complexity of the scene. The drawing was carried out with a sharp black chalk on the white ground, with different pressure and density of the lines, without hatching. Small changes, of course, accompany this impressive undetailed underdrawing and some figures that were sketched but not translated into paint. Some sketch-like traits are evident in the smaller figures, with many details only suggested by the quick brushstrokes.

We are grateful to Gianluca Poldi for the technical examination of the present painting.