Elias in the Wilderness, from Six Landscape Subjects from the Old Testament
1650/60
Medium
Etching on paper
Dimensions
Image: 29.3 × 25 cm (11 9/16 × 9 7/8 in.); Plate: 29.5 × 25.3 cm (11 5/8 × 10 in.); Sheet: 30 × 25.7 cm (11 13/16 × 10 1/8 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
12944
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
While historical documents record Antoni Waterlo as primarily a painter, today he is best known as a printmaker. Waterlo was considered a master at depicting trees, understanding their structures as some artists did the human skeleton. This print shows the prophet Elias alone near the river Jordan after his unpopular foretelling of an imminent drought forced him to leave the kingdom of Samaria. Ravens bring him bread and meat, fulfilling God’s promise to feed his faithful servant. The scene is h...
About the Artist
Anthonie Waterloo · 1609–1690
Anthonie Waterloo (1609–1690) was a prominent Dutch Golden Age landscape artist, born on May 6 in Lille, then part of the Spanish Netherlands. Little is known of his early life beyond his mother, Magdalena Vaillant, who joined Amsterdam's Walloon Church in 1621, with Waterloo following in 1630; no records exist of formal training, and he was likely self-taught. Registered as a painter in Amsterdam...