The cart with the ark appears on the skyline, lit from behind.
Bible in art · 1 Samuel
The Return of the Ark
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
This wide plate was engraved after Doré’s design for «La Sainte Bible» of 1866. The copy shown here is from the Polish edition printed in Warsaw in 1873–1874 and kept in the National Library of Poland.
Doré puts the ark far away — a small cart on the horizon, the winged figures on its lid dark against a burst of sunlight. The real subject is the harvest field: men stop work, shade their eyes, fall to their knees or raise an arm toward the light. In front, yoked oxen rest beside a wagon of sheaves.
From the text
- Two milk cows pulled the cart with the ark (1 Samuel 6:10–11)
- “Now the people of Beth-shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley” (1 Samuel 6:13)
- “they were overjoyed at the sight” (1 Samuel 6:13)
The artist’s own
- The ark as a tiny silhouette against rays of sunlight
- Palm trees at the edge of the field
- A harvest wagon and a pair of yoked oxen resting in the foreground
Details
The ark
The reapers
Harvesters kneel and shade their eyes to look.
A sickle
One man still holds his curved sickle.
The oxen
A pair of yoked oxen lie by the harvest wagon.
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. 72 · 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.