The Gathering of Manna

Bachiacca · 1540/1555
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Bachiacca worked in Florence for the court of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, painting pictures and designing tapestries. This panel, a little over a metre high, dates from about 1540–55; he filled it with people, animals and hills.

Moses, in pink, points with his rod while the people gather the food into jugs, bowls and a great wooden vat. Among the crowd stand a giraffe, a white horse and oxen, and a spotted cat prowls in front — animals of a prince’s menagerie rather than of the desert.

From the text

Fine flakes like frost on the ground each morning (Exodus 16:14)

Moses telling the people it is the bread the LORD has given (Exodus 16:15)

Each one gathering as much as he needed (Exodus 16:16–18)

The artist’s own

A giraffe, a rare and famous animal in Renaissance Florence

Clothes of Bachiacca’s own day: slashed sleeves, caps, turbans and feathers

A large wooden vat for what was gathered

A green, wooded landscape instead of the desert

Details

Moses

A bearded man in a pink robe points with a thin rod.

A giraffe

A long-necked giraffe looks over the heads of the crowd.

The vat

People fill a great wooden vat at the right.

A spotted cat

A spotted cat and a dog in the foreground.

From the ground

A girl bends right down to pick up the food.

On the hill

Further groups gather and carry vessels on the hillside.

Bachiacca (Francesco d'Ubertino Verdi), Italian, 1494–1557. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.4) · Oil on panel · 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

Exod 16:13–18That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew had evaporated, there were thin flakes on the desert floor, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. So Moses told them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Each one is to gather as much as he needs. You may take an omer for each person in your tent.’” So the Israelites did this. Some gathered more, and some less. When they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no shortfall. Each one gathered as much as he needed to eat.