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Thomas de Keyser (1596-1667)
A Dutch patriarch in the guise of Moses being shown the promised land by an angel, with three members of his family (?). Panel, 51 × 76 cm.

The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, inv.nr. NK 1494 (on loan to Rijksmuseum Het Catharijneconvent, Utrecht). Confiscated by the Germans from the Jewish Amsterdam art dealer Jacques Goudstikker. The confiscation was one of the first acts of the army of occupation; a special unit was sent to Holland expressly to seize the Goudstikker stock. The art dealer himself was able, with his wife, to get onto a ship for England, but during the crossing he fell into an open hold and was killed.

Holland is one of the many Christian nations which identified itself with the Chosen People, as it also identified itself with ancient Rome. Individuals too would take on roles from the Bible or from classical authors to give symbolic meaning to some important aspect of their lives. In occasional poetry – verse written for some specific event, such as a marriage, a birth or a death – the subject of the poem is cast more often than not in literary or historical disguise. The same would sometimes be done in painting. Here we see an unknown Dutch family, acting the part, it is thought, of Israelites looking at the promised land. Perhaps the younger generation was returning to their country after a period in exile, for religious reasons, and wished to commemorate the father who had died abroad, comparing him to Moses, who was not allowed by God to cross the Jordan into the land of Israel. However, a proper interpretation of the painting will only be possible if we learn more about the sitters and the circumstances of the commission.

It should not be automatically assumed that the sitters were Calvinists. Other Protestant groups, such as the Remonstrants and the Mennonites, identified themselves just as strongly with the Israelites, to the exclusion of the Calvinists. And Thomas de Keyser is also known to have been patronized by Amsterdam Catholics, many of whom went into exile in the 1580s and only returned to the city in the course of the seventeenth century.