A white bird flies in with a green sprig.
Bible in art · Genesis
The Deluge; The Dove Returning to the Ark with a Branch of an Olive Tree (Ms. 33, fol. 9, from the Weltchronik)
Unknown painter, Regensburg · about 1400–1410
Getty Center, Los Angeles
The Weltchronik (“World Chronicle”) is a long German poem by the 13th-century writer Rudolf von Ems that retells the Bible as the history of the world. This copy was written and painted in Regensburg about 1400–1410.
The painter worked in tempera colours with gold and silver. The ark is a round, roofed boat with arched windows. Noah leans out to greet the dove, which flies in with a green branch, while animals look out beside him and fish swim below.
From the text
- Noah sends out the dove (Genesis 8:8)
- “a freshly plucked olive leaf in her beak” (Genesis 8:11)
The artist’s own
- The ark as a castle-like boat with a tiled roof
- Fish swimming right under the hull
Details
The dove
Noah
An old man leans out of a window, his hand raised.
The animals
Dark animal heads look out of the other windows.
Under the water
Large grey fish swim beneath the hull.
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. 9) · 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/)