Two stone tablets with rounded tops and lines of writing.
Bible in art · Exodus
Moses Comes Down from Mount Sinai
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
A single towering figure fills this plate, engraved by H. Pisan. Doré sets the pale robe and the stone tablets against a black, stormy sky, with a fork of lightning in the corner.
Moses strides down the mountain barefoot, holding the two tablets with rounded tops, covered in lines of writing. His right hand points upward. Two long beams of light rise from his head. Below at the left, a crowd waits in the dark, some raising their hands.
From the text
- Moses came down “with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands” (Exodus 34:29)
- “his face had become radiant from speaking with the LORD” (Exodus 34:29)
- The people “were afraid to approach him” (Exodus 34:30)
The artist’s own
- Two rays of light from his head, an old tradition of painters: the Latin Bible said his face was “horned”
- Tablets with rounded tops and writing, as painters usually drew them
- Lightning and storm, which the text describes earlier at Sinai (Exodus 19:16)
Details
The tablets
Beams of light
Two long rays rise from his head.
His raised hand
Moses points upward with his right hand.
The people
A crowd waits below in the dark.
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. 39 · 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.