WILLEM VAN HERP att. "Isaac blesses Jacob " oil on canvas 17th cent.

The fabrics are recognizable with tactile verisimilitude, the satins are lustrous, the velvets express softness, and the white tablecloth expresses the hardness of a starched linen-like fiber that keeping the folds alive provides the background for a still-life detail with the dishes to be blessed placed in the right corner of the painting. If the composition of this instant taken from the Old Testament turns out to be already known, surely the pictorial quality leads to the attribution of a Flemish author who was initially identified in Abram Willemsen but could also be recognized in WILLEM VAN HERP (Antwerp, 1614 - 1677) a painter in the Rubensian tradition that is also reflected in the main figures and in the delightful detail of the dog whose twisting brings attention to Esau arriving on the threshold and in the shadows. Oil painting on canvas, re-lined in good conservation condition. Measures c. 190x116 cm, excluding frame Isaac lying in bed blesses Jacob who, disguised in Esau's robes, brings food to his father; Jacob's hands and neck are covered with goatskins (Genesis 27:27)