A tiny flame lights the floor.
Bible in art · Luke
The Lost Drachma (La drachme perdue)
James Tissot · 1886–1894
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Tissot painted the parable of the lost coin as a night piece. In a dark room a woman crawls on the floor in a white headcloth and a striped dress, peering under a low wicker chest.
A tiny oil lamp stands on the floor and throws a circle of warm light on the paving stones and the bottom of the chest. Everything else is in deep brown shadow.
From the text
- “what woman who has ten silver coins and loses one of them does not light a lamp, sweep her house, and search carefully until she finds it?” (Luke 15:8)
- She calls her friends: “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin” (Luke 15:9)
The artist’s own
- The woman searching under a wicker chest
- A single small lamp on the floor
Details
The lamp
The woman
She bends right down to the floor to look.
Her hand
She reaches under the chest.
The chest
A tall wicker chest catches the lamplight.
James Tissot, French, 1836–1902. Brooklyn Museum, New York (Purchased by public subscription, 00.159.93) · Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper · Brooklyn Museum (Commons file page, «Permission»): "This image was uploaded by the Brooklyn Museum as a content partnership, and is considered to have no known copyright restrictions by the institutions of the Brooklyn Museum." — "No known copyright restrictions".