Laban Searching for his Household Gods
ca. 1753
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Plate: 5 11/16 × 9 7/16 in. (14.4 × 23.9 cm) Sheet: 7 1/4 × 9 13/16 in. (18.4 × 25 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Susan Schulman Printseller and Carolyn Bullard Fine Prints and Drawings, in honor of Perrin Stein, 2016
Accession Number
2016.585
Tags
Art Historical Context
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin’s *Laban Searching for his Gods* (ca. 1753) is a delicate etching that captures a tense biblical moment from Genesis 31. Here, the patriarch Laban rummages through Jacob’s tents in search of stolen household idols, or *teraphim*—small figurines revered as protective deities in ancient Near Eastern culture. Rendered in fine lines on a modest plate (5 11/16 × 9 7/16 in.), the scene brims with figures of men and women, evoking drama and domestic intrigue amid pastoral tents. As a master of the Rococo style, Saint-Aubin (1724–1780) excelled in intricate prints that blended ...
About the Artist
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin · 1724–1780
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724–1780) was one of the most vivid and irrepressible graphic artists of eighteenth-century France, a tireless draughtsman whose sketchbooks and prints constitute an extraordinary visual chronicle of Parisian life during the Ancien Régime. Born into a family with strong connections to the decorative arts — his father was an embroiderer to the king — Saint-Aubin received fo...