The Oath of Abraham’s Servant
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
unframed: 56 × 78.4 cm · framed: 71.2 × 94 × 9 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
Accession Number
1969.1
Tags
About this artwork
This work has long been called Journey of a Patriarch in the belief that the artist intended no specific subject. Recent research by graduate student Tamara Durn of Case Western Reserve University suggests that the painting instead depicts a moment in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Abraham secures a pledge from his servant to find a wife for Abraham’s son Isaac. The servant wears a zamt, a goatskin cap common in North Africa in the 1600s, here dyed an unusual shade of blue, a color associate...