The winged angel in red and Jacob locked together, Jacob straining forward.
Bible in art · Genesis
Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
Delacroix · 1850
The Met, New York
In 1850 Eugène Delacroix made this oil sketch over a pen drawing on tracing paper. It is a study for his mural of the same scene in the Chapel of the Holy Angels in the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, finished in 1861; the arched top follows the shape of the wall.
Huge trees fill the picture. Small at the lower left, the angel in red and Jacob grapple, Jacob pushing with his whole body.
From the text
- Jacob sending everyone across the stream and staying behind (Genesis 32:22–24)
- A man wrestling with him until daybreak (Genesis 32:24)
- The man striking the socket of Jacob’s hip (Genesis 32:25)
The artist’s own
- The “man” of the text painted as an angel with wings
- A deep forest of giant trees around the ford
- Jacob’s things laid down on the ground beside him
Details
The wrestlers
First light
A gap in the trees shows a pale sky and a rocky peak.
Left on the ground
A bundle of cloth and something like a weapon lie on the ground.
The stream
A strip of water runs along the bottom of the picture.
Eugène Delacroix, French, Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798–1863 Paris. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix, in honor of Philippe de Montebello, 2016; acc. 2016.759) · Oil over pen and ink on tracing paper; mounted on canvas and backed with linen · Public Domain — The Met Open Access (CC0). The Met Collection API record: "isPublicDomain": true; The Met marks such works on its website "with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) icon".