A figure wrapped in a cloak sits high on a camel with a striped saddle cloth.
Bible in art · Genesis
Abraham Journeying into the Land of Canaan
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
One of the wide landscape plates of the Doré Bible of 1866, engraved by H. Pisan. This copy comes from the Polish edition printed in Warsaw by M. Glücksberg in 1873–1874 with the Wujek translation, now in the National Library of Poland.
Abram’s household moves slowly across a stony upland under a huge evening sky. A rider on a camel with a striped saddle cloth leads the way in the foreground; a man walks beside it. A sea of sheep fills the lower half, and more riders fade into the haze.
From the text
- Abram took Sarai, Lot, and “all the possessions and people they had acquired in Haran” (Genesis 12:5)
- He was seventy-five when he left Haran (Genesis 12:4)
- They set out for the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:5)
The artist’s own
- The camels, striped cloths and long staffs of the Arab travelers Doré’s time knew from pictures of the East
- Evening light low on the horizon — the text names no hour
Details
The leading rider
Riders ahead
Two more riders on camels are seen against the bright sky.
The flocks
Hundreds of sheep fill the road and the fields.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 1, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1873 (acc. 75.267 A), tabl. 11 · Wood engraving after Gustave Doré’s design · National Library of Poland (Polona): the record of the volume gives the licence «Domena Publiczna» (Public Domain), «copyrightProtected»: false; the scan was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the library itself («Polona Upload», GLAM-Wiki partnership: “This file was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of a GLAM-Wiki partnership between the National Library of Poland and Wikimedia Polska”), linking its Polona record.