Getty Museum

Hagar Weeping

Creator

Dutch Artist · 1621–1674

According to Dutch biographer Arnold Houbraken, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout was both pupil and "great friend" of Rembrandt van Rijn. The son of a goldsmith, Van den Eeckhout probably studied with Rembrandt in the latter half of the 1630s. The compositional principles of Rembrandt's teacher Pieter Lastman, known for his theatrical realism and illusionism, also strongly affected him. Rembrandt may hav

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Date: early 1640s
Medium: Oil on canvas
Culture: Dutch
Department: Paintings
Institution: Getty Museum
Object ID: f4126000-e825-4638-ba6f-8b5362520f0b

From the Getty Museum record

With her face bathed in soft light, the weeping Hagar turns away from the viewer and looks up sharply. At his wife Sarah's request, Abraham reluctantly cast out the Egyptian slave-maid Hagar and her son, Ishmael, who she had conceived with him. After running out of water in the Beersheba desert, Hagar left her dying son crying under a bush, then moved a short distance away to weep in anguish. Gerbrand van den Eeckhout represented Hagar with her vision of the angel who told her that God had heard the boy's cries and promised "I will make a great nation of him." Looking up, Hagar saw a well nearby, and they were saved, and became the ancestors of the Arab peoples. Hagar and the angel's torso were cut from a larger painting some time before the Getty Museum received this painting.

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