Abraham Repudiating Hagar

Lucas van Leyden · 1516
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Lucas van Leyden engraved this plate in Leiden and dated it 1516. He cut it with a light hand: the hatching is open, and much of the paper is left almost bare.

Old Abraham, one hand on his hip, sends Hagar away. She lifts a hand to wipe her eye, a jug hanging at her side. The boy Ishmael stands close to her and looks up. A little dog sniffs the ground.

From the text

Abraham sent Hagar away early in the morning (Genesis 21:14)

Bread and a skin of water for the road (Genesis 21:14)

The matter “distressed Abraham greatly” (Genesis 21:11)

The artist’s own

Ishmael as a small child — by the years in Genesis he was already a youth

A jug instead of a skin of water

A dog with a collar of bells and a walled town of Lucas’s country

Details

Abraham

Old and bearded, one hand on his hip, he turns to Hagar.

Hagar

She lifts a hand to wipe her eye.

Ishmael

The boy stands close to his mother and looks up.

The dog

A little dog with a collar of bells.

Lucas van Leyden, Netherlandish, c. 1489/94–1533. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.5662) · Engraving · NGA Open Access: "Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)." (NGA open data: published_images.csv openaccess = 1)

The verses

Gen 21:9–14But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking her son, and she said to Abraham, “Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!” Now this matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son Ishmael. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned. But I will also make a nation of the slave woman’s son, because he is your offspring.” Early in the morning, Abraham got up, took bread and a skin of water, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her away with the boy. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.