Lot 1550 Dα

Willem de Poorter has often been referred to as Rembrandt's pupil, which is obviously due to a misreading of Houbraken. In fact, there is no evidence of a teacher-pupil relationship between Rembrandt and de Poorter. Nevertheless, the great Dutchman left his mark on the artist´s work and Werner Sumowski, in his "Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler (Paintings by Rembrandt's Pupils)“, devotes an extensive chapter to de Poorter. Quoting Kurt Bauch, he characterises his style as follows: "Not grainy with thick impasto modelling of the light like Rembrandt and his circle, but thinly painted, flat and more brightly outlined". De Poorter did not work in Leiden or Amsterdam like Rembrandt, but in Haarlem throughout his life. Here he created an extensive body of work. The most important pictorial motifs he took from the Bible and from Antiquity.