BIRMINGHAM, UK.- The Barber Institute of Fine Arts,
University of Birmingham presents Concocting a Masterpiece — Bartholomeus Breenbergh: ‘Joseph distributing corn in Egypt’, through January 23, 2005. Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657) was one of the most versatile -- and engaging -- of Dutch 17th-century artists. Initially finding success as a painter of Italianate landscapes, he later transgressed all the rules followed by his Dutch contemporaries, who usually confined themselves to a single genre of painting. First combining landscape with classical or religious subjects, Breenbergh then transformed himself into a painter of monumental history pictures, in the manner of the precursors of Rembrandt.

The latest in the Barber Institute’s Picture-in-Focus series, this exhibition features major landscape and history paintings from throughout Breenbergh’s career alongside works by related masters. It also unites for the first time the Barber’s enigmatic Joseph distributing corn in Egypt (1655) with an almost identical version painted a year earlier. With loans from public and private collections in Britain and abroad, including the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, and the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam, the exhibition affords a first-ever opportunity to appreciate the art of one of the most delightful and neglected of Dutch Masters.