A bearded man in a fur hat rides the donkey.
Bible in art · Numbers
Balaam's Ass (Ms. 33, fol. 105v, from the Weltchronik)
Unknown painter, Regensburg · about 1400–1410
Getty Center, Los Angeles
A page of the Regensburg Weltchronik, about 1400–1410. Like most chronicle pictures it was painted after the text was written, in a space the scribe left.
Balaam, in a fur hat, rides a grey donkey along a path. Out of the green hedge an angel leans towards them with a drawn sword, and the donkey turns her head.
From the text
- The angel stands in the road with a drawn sword (Numbers 22:23)
- Balaam riding his donkey (Numbers 22:22)
The artist’s own
- Balaam as a rich traveller in a fur hat
- The angel coming out of the hedge
Details
Balaam
The angel
A fair-haired angel holds out a sword.
The donkey
Her head turns towards the angel.
The hedge
Dense green bushes line the path.
Unknown illuminator, Regensburg; text by Rudolf von Ems (Austrian, about 1200–1254). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (Ms. 33 (88.MP.70), fol. 105v) · Tempera colors, gold, silver paint, and ink · Images provided here are believed to be in the public domain and are available under CC0 through Getty’s Open Content Program. (Getty record: "No Copyright", http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)