Jesus sits in the boat and raises His hand as He speaks.
Bible in art · Luke
Jesus Teaches from the Boat
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
H. Hildibrand, one of the busiest engravers of the Doré Bible, cut this plate; his name is written at the bottom of the sheet. Like the other designs of 1866, it soon appeared in many languages.
A small round-sided boat rests at the edge of the lake, and Jesus sits in it, one hand raised. On the shore a crowd stands and kneels, with a curly-haired boy in front. The sky is wide and soft, the water bright at the horizon, and a palm leans over the people.
From the text
- Jesus stood by the Lake of Gennesaret “with the crowd pressing in on Him” (Luke 5:1)
- He got into Simon’s boat and asked him “to put out a little from shore” (Luke 5:3)
- “sitting down, He taught the people from the boat” (Luke 5:3)
The artist’s own
- A palm tree on the shore of Galilee
- Jesus alone in the boat — Simon and the fishermen washing their nets are not shown
- A child at the front of the crowd
Details
In the boat
The boy
A curly-haired boy stands at the water’s edge in front of the crowd.
The crowd
Men in turbans and cloaks stand and kneel on the shore to listen.
The palm
A tall palm tree leans over the people.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 2, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1874 (acc. 75.267 A) · 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.