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    • James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
    • Images of Women in 17th Century Prints and Drawings
      • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/3/1989 - 11/5/1989)
    • Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
      • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
      • Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
      • University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
      • Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
    • Teachers of Rembrandt
      • E. B. Crocker Art Gallery. ( 12/7/1974 - 1/26/1975)
    • Drawing on Basics
      • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
    • Modes of the Masculine and Feminine in Art, 1500-1700
    • The Bible and Its Interpreters
      • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 11/8/2004 - 12/23/2004)
    • Old Master Drawings from the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
      • Timken Museum of Art. ( 5/13/2005 - 8/14/2005) 
    
Author: Henry Johnson
Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 94
Remarks: (as Unknown)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings
Date: 1885

Author: Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Document Title: Bowdoin Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building
Edition: 4th
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 94
Remarks: (as Unknown)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . .
Date: 1930

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: David P. Becker
Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pp. 34-35
Reference: no. 14 (illus.)
Remarks: (as Moeyaert)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Date: 1985

    Moeyaert's birthplace is uncertain, but he was in Amsterdam from about 1605 and spent virtually his entire career there. The course of his artistic studies is unknown. He received many portrait commissions (especially from the Catholic Church) and was associated with the Amsterdam Theater. In 1638 he participated in the designs for the entry into Amsterdam of Marie de' Medici (some of which were used to illustrate the commemorative volume by C. van Baerle, Medicae Hospes, 1638). He also executed a number of etchings. Some of Moeyaert's notable pupils include Salomon Koninck, Nicolaes Berchem (cf. BCMA 1956.24.187), Jacob van der Does, and Jan Baptist Weenix (cf. BCMA 1811.140). Moeyaert is most often included among the group of early seventeenth-century artists called the Pre-Rembrandtists, which include Jan and Jacob Pynas, Pieter Lastman, and Moses van Uyttenbroeck. In his later years, however, Moeyaert was often influenced by the younger Rembrandt. Like other artists of his circle, Moeyaert specialized in historical and biblical scenes of often obscure iconography.

    This drawing remained unidentified until Lugt attributed it to Moeyaert in 1945. The story of the interview between Christ and the Samaritan Woman is related in John 4:7-29. As Tümpel points out, the moment shown here is just after Christ reveals himself as the Messiah, while his disciples are seen approaching in the right background. Tümpel dates this sheet to the period of Moeyaert's work after 1639, when his figures become less stiff and their contours dissolve. She points out that the silhouette presentation of the disciples in the background is typical of his style from this point. She characterizes the Bowdoin drawing as a less finished, rather "cursory" work.1

    There are no other known drawings by Moeyaert of this subject, and no painting was listed by Tümpel in her 1974 catalogue of his work. However, this subject was treated several times by Rembrandt, in two etchings from 1634 and ca. 1657/58,2 two paintings of 1655,3 and at least two drawings.4 Other members of Rembrandt's circle treated this subject, among them Ferdinand Bol and Philips Koninck.5

    Moeyaert was a fairly prolific draughtsman, and there are quite a few drawings by him in American collections.6 There are two other drawings by him in the original Bowdoin collection, an early sheet of Tobias Frightened by the Fish7 and The Flight Into Egypt (BCMA 1811.52). Bowdoin also owns an early copy after Moeyaert, Joseph Sold by His Brothers,8 and in 1970 the Museum purchased a large Moeyaert painting of ca. 1636, The Meeting of Jacob and Joseph in Egypt.9

    David P. Becker

    1. Sacramento 1974, p. 39.

    2. Bartsch 71 and 70.

    3. A. Bredius, The Complete Edition of the Paintings — Rembrandt, 3rd. ed. rev. by H. Gerson (London, 1969), nos. 588 (Berlin) and 589 (Metropolitan Museum).

    4. Benesch 611 and 978. Three more drawings which may be by students are listed by Benesch, nos. A 80, A 100, and A118.

    5. For Bol: Sumowski 1979ff., vol. I, 221X, 222X (1640s); for Koninck: vol. 6, 1352 (1671), 1381X, 1383X (1655/8), and 1445X (1671).

    6. Cf. Sacramento 1974.

    7. BCMA 1811.63, Sacramento 1974, cat. no. 18, repr.

    8. BCMA 1811.101.

    9. BCMA 1970.41. Sacramento 1974, cat. no. 16, repr.

    Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).