Professor Butter Beard’s “Isaac and Rebecca”
“I experience each moment like baklava: rich in this layer, and this layer, and this layer.”
- Ram Dass, American spiritual teacher
In the warm spring of 1885, Vincent Van Gogh, who according to biographers enjoyed walking as a child with his eyes half closed, sat in front of Rembrandt’s “Isaac and Rebecca” in the Rijksmuseum completely transfixed under its mesmerizing spell. In a letter to his friend Anton Kerssemakers, he wrote: “I should be happy to give ten years of my life if I could go on sitting in front of this picture for ten days with only a dry crust of bread.” Over one hundred years later, I also experienced the spellbinding sensation when I stood before the same painting. I didn’t offer to fast, but I did almost fail my undergraduate class in Dutch Baroque when I informed the professor (and the entire class) that her slide looked nothing like the actual masterpiece.
In a darkened archway, a young woman in a luxurious garnet dress stands with her wrists and neck elegantly draped in gleaming pearls. Her slightly older male companion stands to her right, one arm behind her, the other reaching out to gently lay a hand at her breast. He is equally richly dressed in a vertically pleated garment over a shirt glowing in shimmering shades of gold and chocolate brown. The fingers of her left hand barely rest on his in a touching gesture. The two lovers, despite the intimacy of their gesture, do not look at each other, nor do they look at the viewer. According to Dr. Saskia Beranek, they are alone in this moment, but Rembrandt directly involves us in the scene, blurring the boundary between painting and life. We are privileged spies witnessing an intimate moment.
To date, no one knows the true identity of the couple, or even the story portrayed. The painting gained its current nickname of “The Jewish Bride” in the early 19th century, when an Amsterdam art collector identified the subject as that of a Jewish father bestowing a pearl necklace upon his daughter on her wedding day. This interpretation is no longer accepted. Modern suggestions as to the couple's identity have ranged from Rembrandt's son Titus and his bride, or the Amsterdam poet Miguel de Barrios and his wife, who may have requested that the artist create a “historiated portrait” to celebrate their marriage.
Most commonly accepted, however, is the identification of the figures as the Biblical couple Isaac and Rebecca. Dr. Beranek has identified many textual and visual sources that support this identification. The story of this couple is found in the Old Testament in the book of Genesis: Isaac and Rebecca were seeking refuge in the lands of King Abimelech. Fearing that the locals might kill him because of his wife’s beauty, Isaac claimed that Rebecca was his sister, not his wife. They were, however, caught in a moment of intimacy by the king, revealing their true relationship. According to the author of Genesis, Abimelech reprimanded them for their deceit, but also commanded that no one harm them as they are the model married couple: she is modest, beautiful, and obedient while he is faithful, steadfast, and strong in his faith.
Rembrandt painted this canvas very late in his career when his vision was becoming challenged, and his hands were swelling with gout. His paintings from this period are characterized by rich warm earth tones, with some areas thinly painted and others applied in a thick impasto of layers upon layers. Simon Schama writes that Rembrandt “ventures far beyond anything recognizable as conventional impasto laid on with a palette knife, creating, especially in the garments billowing from his figures, fantastic passages of sculpted pigment in which the ostensible shapes they are meant to describe – fold, pleats, swags, brocades – dissolve and collapse, actually seeming to occlude and obstruct, rather than assist, definition.”
Layers upon layers. What better way to celebrate this masterpiece in the kitchen could there be than building dozens of layers of buttered phyllo pastry encasing toasted hazelnuts, tiny morsels of rich dark chocolate and dried tart cherries? I then soak the baked sculpture in a sweet thick syrup of local honey and rose water. Each diamond-shaped bite shimmers like the puffed sleeve of Isaac and inspires an inner glow like the ruby cheeks of Rebecca. Happy Valentine's Day to us all.
Valentine Baklava with Dark Chocolate, Hazelnuts and Dried Cherries
Makes 32 to 40 pieces
Rose Syrup:
1 cup granulated sugar
¾ cup water
½ cup honey
¼ tsp fine sea salt
1 Tbsp rose water
Filling:
2 cups toasted hazelnuts, finely chopped
3/4 cup mini morsels of dark chocolate
3/4 cup dried cherries, soaked overnight, drained and finely chopped
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp fine sea salt
Pastry and Butter:
12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter
1 lb. frozen phyllo, thawed
1) For the syrup: combine ingredients in a saucepan (except the rose water) and bring to a full boil over medium heat until the sugar is fully dissolved. Transfer the syrup to a glass measuring cup, stir in the rose water, and set aside to cool.
2) For the nut filling: pulse the hazelnuts in a food processor until finely chopped (do not over chop into a paste!) Transfer the nuts to a medium bowl and stir in the chocolate and finely chopped cherries, the cinnamon, sugar and salt. Set aside 1-2 Tbsp of the mixture for finishing garnish.
3) Melt the butter in a saucepan. Set aside to cool for ten minutes. Skim off the foam from the surface and then spoon out the clarified butter leaving the mix solids in the saucepan.
4) Brush a 13x9 pan (not non-stick – the cutting of the baklava might harm the surface) with some of the clarified butter.
5) Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
6) Open the package of phyllo and smooth the sheets. Cut the edges of the stack of phyllo to match the size of your pan (9x13). Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap and then a damp towel (for weight). Lift the covering to remove each sheet.
7) Layer eight sheets of phyllo in the pan – brushing each with the clarified butter as you stack the layers. Distribute about 1 cup of the filling over the eight sheets of phyllo. Cover with a sheet of phyllo – dabbing the butter so the sheet won’t tear. Layer with five more sheets of phyllo, one cup of the filling, six sheets of phyllo, remaining filling and finally eight sheets of phyllo.
8) After placing the final sheet of phyllo, use the palms of your hands to compress the layers removing any air pockets. Brush the top sheet with clarified butter and then using a serrated knife, cut the baklava into diamonds.
9) Bake the baklava for 90 minutes, rotating the pan halfway, until golden and crisp. Immediately after removing the pan from the oven, pour the syrup into the cut lines of the diamonds. Gently drizzle 2-3 Tbsp of the syrup over the top layer and garnish with the reserved filling. Cool to room temperature for three hours on a wire rack before serving. If you can wait, cover the pan with foil and let sit eight hours before serving.
“Isaac and Rebecca” mounted in the Rijksmuseum. Photo taken by Ryan Hadley on September 20, 2019.
