The Tower of Babel
Flemish School
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1600 - 1699
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
711 x 559 mm (28 x 22 in)
Place of origin
Flanders
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 515672
Caption
The biblical story of the creation of the Tower of Babel is told in Genesis (11:1-9). The people declared: ‘Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, with its top in the heavens.’ To humble their pride God confused the people’s language so that they no longer understood one another and scattered them over the face of the earth so that the building was not finished. Nimrod, a legendary conqueror of Babylon in the 2nd millennium BC, was traditionally said to have supervised the construction of the tower, directing the workmen who carried the bricks and mortar. The idea of a variety of languages is conveyed by the portrayal of different racial types. The type of building follows the ‘ziggurat’, a vast sacred brick edifice, a feature of the larger Sumerian cities of Mesopotamia.
Summary
Oil painting on panel, The Tower of Babel, Flemish School, 17th century. The completed Tower of Babel is in the middle of a hilly landscape with numerous figures. In the foreground. Nimrod, the king of Babylon, is in the centre surrounded by soldiers. A triumphal procession is taking place with attendants bearing trophies. Red seal with coat-of-arms and crest on back of panel
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Flemish School, artist