Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (37.1996)

Ter Brugghen’s painting in Warsaw, King David Playing his Harp, Surrounded
by Angels (Fig. 11), executed in 1628, a year before the artist’s death, is an
important late work, generally accepted as the best of four versions of this
composition.21 The one in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford is probably
an autograph replica, while those in the Kunsthalle in Kiel and in the Städelsches
Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt a. M., appear to be old copies. King David is represented
here as the performing author of the Psalms, in accordance with passages of the
Bible describing him as a talented musician. Contrary to David with a Head of
Goliath, this subject was completely unknown in the circle of Italian Caravaggisti.

In a comprehensive monographic study, Kobayashi-Sato followed Nora de
Poorter’s lead of 1978, pointing out that the Warsaw painting is similar to the

revisit Italy? Notes from an unknown manuscrpt by Cornelis de Bie”, Hoogsteder-Naumann
Mercury, no. 4, 1986, pp.7-22, passim; Slatkes, “Die Kunst des Hendrick ter Brugghen”, op. cit.,
p.47-49; idem, “Rethinking ter Brugghen’s early Chronology”, op. cit., esp. pp.77 and 80. On the
painting in Sarasota, which is one of several versions of this composition, cf. L. Mortari, Bernardo
Strozzi, Roma 1966, pp.38, 89, 155, 167, 172, 174; R Tomory, Catalogue of The Italian Paintings
before 1800, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, [Sarasota, Florida] 1976, cat. no. 62,
p.69, repr. col.

21 Inv. no. M. Ob. 529, oil on canvas, 150 x 190 cm, dated; cf. B.Nicolson, Hendrick Terbrugghen,
op. cit., cat. no. A77; cf. L. J. Slatkes, Hendrick Terbrugghen in America, exh. cat. The Dayton Art
Institute, Dayton 1965; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore 1966; E. Haverkamp-Begemann et
ah, Wadsworth Athenewn Paintings. Catalogue I. The Netherlands and the German-speaking

11. Hendrick 1er Brugghen,
King David Playing his
Harp, surrounded by
Angels, 1628, Warsaw,
Muzeum Narodowe

233