Joseph in Egypt
1668–71
Medium
Etching on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 29.5 × 43.5 cm (11 5/8 × 17 3/16 in.); Sheet: 44.3 × 5.8 cm (17 1/2 × 2 5/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
117992
Art Historical Context
**Joseph in Egypt** by Sébastien Bourdon, created between 1668 and 1671, captures a pivotal biblical moment from the Book of Genesis. The French Baroque artist, renowned for his dramatic history paintings and intricate engravings, depicts’s rise from slavery to power in Pharaoh’s court. Bourdon, who trained in Paris and Rome, infused his works with dynamic compositions and emotional intensity, drawing from Caravaggio’s tenebrism and classical influences—a hallmark of the era’s Académie Royale style. This etching on ivory laid paper exemplifies 17th-century printmaking mastery. Etching allowed...
About the Artist
Sébastien Bourdon · 1616–1671
Sébastien Bourdon (1616–1671) was a French Baroque painter of remarkable versatility and restless ambition, whose career carried him from the workshops of Paris to the courts of Rome and Stockholm before he returned to France to become a founding member of one of Europe's most important artistic institutions. Born on 2 February 1616 in Montpellier into a Protestant family, Bourdon was apprenticed ...