It takes a certain courage nowadays to attribute a painting to Jan van Noordt. The monograph by David de Witt, which was published in 2007, really ‘set things straight’ in the oeuvre of the master, with a list of identified works that has expanded spectacularly in the past few decades. On the one hand, it facilitates orientation amid the multitude of paintings done in a congenial spirit and similar style; on the other, it forewarns about attribution based purely on formal criteria. Nevertheless, in this case I have applied a purely style-critical approach after ‘recognizing’ the hand of the master, since I was unable to unearth any tangible proof, such as an entry in an inventory or data from an earlier auction that would support my theory.

The work under consideration here, an oil painting on canvas measuring 112 × 135 cm, was on loan from 2011 to 2015 at the Szepműveszeti Múzeum from a private collection in Budapest. It first appeared in Hungarian private ownership in 2001 (fig. 8.1 and pl. 8.1). In 2011 it was put up for auction at Nagyházi Gallery in Budapest with an attribution to Aert Jansz van Marienhof based on expertise provided by István Németh. Thanks to this expertise the subject of the painting was identified as Bathsheba at the Deathbed of King David (1 Kings 1: 15-31). As to the problem of authorship, Németh emphasised the combination of various stylistic influences: besides Rembrandtesque elements, Nemeth thought he detected features related to the Utrecht school. He cited as a comparison the 1649 painting by Van Marienhof in Dresden.