Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness

Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw

Doré gives most of this plate to a single great rock, cut by the engraver in thousands of short wavy lines so that the stone seems to glow in the heat. The two people are small against it.

Hagar kneels at the foot of the rock with both arms raised over her head and her long hair loose. A little way off the boy Ishmael lies face down on the sand, his arms thrown out. Between them lies the empty water jar on its cord. A dry bush grows by the rock.

From the text

“When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes” (Genesis 21:15)

She sat “about a bowshot away” and wept (Genesis 21:16)

“I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” (Genesis 21:16)

The artist’s own

Hagar close to the boy, not a bowshot away

A pottery jar instead of a water skin

The boy lying in open sand rather than under a bush

Details

Hagar

She kneels against the rock, her arms raised and her hair loose.

Ishmael

The boy lies face down on the sand with his arms thrown out.

The empty jar

The water jar lies on its side, its cord trailing.

The bush

A low desert bush at the foot of the rock.

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. 15 · 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.