Samuel Anointing the Young David (?)
Medium
Point of brush, gray and gray-black wash, heightened with white, over slight traces of black chalk
Dimensions
11 1/16 x 22 1/2 in. (28.1 x 57.1 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1953
Accession Number
53.511
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the hushed galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of, Jan Erasmus Quellinus'sSamuel Anointing the Young* (?) captivates with its dramatic biblical scene from the Old Testament. Likely depicting the prophet Samuel anointing the shepherd boy David as Israel's future king (1 Samuel16), the drawing teems with life: a crowd of men, women, and animals gathers in a moment of divine prophecy and destiny. Quellinus, a 17th-century Flemish artist from the illustrious Antwerp workshop tied to Peter Paul Rubens, infused his works with the exuberant energy of the Baroque style—dynamic compositions and emo...