Across the table the brothers’ hands meet; the bowl of stew is held between them.
Bible in art · Genesis
Esau Selling his Birthright
After Paulus Moreelse · after 1609
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
This large canvas is a copy, by an unknown painter, of a composition by Paulus Moreelse of Utrecht; the Rijksmuseum dates it after 1609. It came to the museum as a bequest in 1942.
The two brothers sit close at a table. Esau, in a yellow jerkin with bare legs and a knife at his belt, holds the bowl, while Jacob stretches across to grip his hand. Through a doorway at the back the story moves on: a woman and a young man stand at an old man’s bed.
From the text
- Esau coming in from the field, famished (Genesis 25:29)
- The birthright sold under an oath (Genesis 25:33)
- Bread and lentil stew given to Esau (Genesis 25:34)
- Later, Jacob at blind Isaac’s bed (Genesis 27:18–19)
The artist’s own
- A handshake to seal the bargain
- A hunting dog asleep under the table, a sign of Esau the hunter
- A table with a white cloth, as in a Dutch house
- Two moments of the brothers’ story in one room
Details
The bargain
Esau
The hunter, sunburnt, in a yellow jerkin, leans in and looks his brother in the face.
Jacob
Jacob, in blue with a red cloak, stretches his arm across the table.
The dog
A hunting dog lies curled up on the floor under the table.
The next chapter
In the room behind, a woman and a young man stand at an old man’s bed.
Copy after Paulus Moreelse, Dutch, 1571–1638. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-3455; O.A. Peters Bequest, Amsterdam, 1942) · Oil on canvas · Image: "Public Domain" (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/); object metadata: CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) — Rijksmuseum Linked Art record.