Isaac lays his hand on the head of the kneeling young man.
Bible in art · Genesis
Isaac Blessing Jacob
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout · 1642
The Met, New York
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, another of Rembrandt’s pupils in Amsterdam, painted this scene in 1642, a few years after Flinck’s. He sets it in a whole room: a curtained bed on a raised platform, a carved chair, a table under a patterned carpet.
Jacob kneels at the bedside with a quiver on his back, dressed as the hunter his brother was, and Isaac rests a hand on his head. Rebekah stands close by, leaning on a cane and raising a finger. In a doorway at the far left a young man looks in.
From the text
- Jacob in his brother’s clothes (Genesis 27:15)
- Isaac blessing the son he does not recognize (Genesis 27:23)
- The food and the wine brought to the old man (Genesis 27:25)
The artist’s own
- A quiver of arrows on Jacob’s back, so that he looks like Esau the hunter
- Rebekah beside the bed, watching
- A Dutch bedchamber with a silver ewer and bread on the table
- A young man in the far doorway — perhaps a servant, perhaps Esau coming back (Genesis 27:30)
Details
The blessing
In disguise
Jacob kneels with a quiver of arrows on his back.
Rebekah
His mother leans on a cane and lifts one finger.
In the doorway
Far off, a young man stands in a doorway, half in shadow.
The meal
On the table: a tall silver ewer, a dish of food and a loaf.
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Dutch, Amsterdam 1621–1674 Amsterdam. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900; acc. 25.110.16) · Oil on canvas · Public Domain — The Met Open Access (CC0). The Met Collection API record: "isPublicDomain": true; The Met marks such works on its website "with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) icon".