Isaac and Jacob - The Collection (2024)

Isaac and Jacob

Ribera, Jusepe de, lo Spagnoletto

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Ribera, Jusepe de, lo Spagnoletto

Játiva, Valencia (Spain), 1591 - Naples (Italy), 1652

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1637. Oil on canvas.
Room 009

This painting narrates an event from chapter 27 of Genesis, in which Jacob tricks his father, Isaac, in order to obtain the blessing that should rightfully go to his older brother, Esau. Jacob’s mother, Rebecca, helps him dress in Esau’s clothes and cover his arm with a sheepskin that resembles his brother’s abundant body hair. He then takes food to his elderly, blind father, Isaac, thus inducing him to confuse him with Esau. This was a very common subject among 17th-century Italian painters, but was rarely depicted in Spain.

This painting is an excellent example of the artist’s gifts as a narrative painter and his capacity to transmit a broad range of complex human emotions. The spatial compression subliminally increases the story’s dramatic tension, as the viewer is aware of all the rage and disappointment that will explode when Isaac and Esau discover how they have been tricked. Esau, who appears in the distance through an opening on the left side of the composition, is returning tranquilly from the hunt with no idea that he is being tricked. With her right hand, Rebecca pushes Jacob toward his father, encouraging him to make the most of the situation. By looking directly out at the viewers, she makes us silent accomplices to her elaborate strategy. Jacob extends his hand with some hesitancy, uncomfortable with the hand fate has dealt him, while Isaac runs his hand along the full length of the young man’s arm without knowing whether his senses of touch and smell are mistaken: The voice is Jacob’s, but the hands are those of Esau (Verse 22).

Ribera approaches the subject almost like an allegory of the five senses, where the essence of the episode is that the sense of touch has to compensate for the absent sense of sight (Isaac’s blindness). According to the Bible, despite the fact that Jacob’s voice confused him, Isaac was certain that it was Esau alongside him because of the smell of his clothing. The reference to the sense of touch appears in the still life on the table to the right, which is the platter of game that Isaac had requested of his eldest son. In the series of The Senses Ribera painted in the mid 1610s, he had already explored some of these ideas. And here, as in another earlier work, The Sense of Touch (Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena), he uses the motive of blindness to draw our attention to the artist’s own extraordinarily precise vision.

This work dates from 1637, a fundamental year in Ribera’s career. That year, he began working for the Duke of Medina de las Torres -viceroy of Naples between 1637 and 1641- who commissioned him to paint various works for both his own collection and for the king. And that same year, he began working for the Carthusian monks of San Martino, with whom he maintained a fruitful, if problematic relation through the end of his life. Moreover, some of his finest works date from 1637, including the Pietà at San Martino, Apollo Flaying Marsyas, in Naples, and the Venus and Adonis at the Palazzo Corsini in Rome.

El Prado en el Hermitage, Museo Estatal del Hermitage: Museo del Prado, 2011, p.128-129

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Inventory number: P001118
Author: Ribera, Jusepe de, lo Spagnoletto
Title: Isaac and Jacob
Date: 1637
Technique: Oil
Support: Canvas
Dimension: Height: 110 cm; Width: 291.5 cm
Provenance: Royal Collection (New Royal Palace, Madrid, "primera sala de la Furriera", 1747, nº 115; New Royal Palace, Madrid, "cuarto del infante don Javier", 1772, nº 115; New Royal Palace, Madrid, "pieza de trucos", 1794, nº 115; New Royal Palace, Madrid, "pieza de trucos", 1814-1818, nº 115; Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid, 1816-1827).

Bibliography +

Inventario: Real Palacio de Madrid., Madrid, 1734, pp. ?.

Inventario: Real Palacio de Madrid, Madrid, 1747, pp. ?.

Inventario Nuevo Palacio Real, Madrid, 1772, pp. ?.

Palacio Nuevo de Madrid, Madrid, 1794, pp. ?.

Inventario. Real Palacio de Madrid. 1814, Madrid, 1814, pp. ?.

Viñaza, Cipriano Muñoz y Manzano Conde de, Adiciones al diccionario histórico de los mas ilustres profesores de Bellas Artes en España de D. Juan Agustín Cean Bermúdez, [s.n.], Madrid, 1894, pp. 310.

Trapier, Elizabeth du Gué, Ribera, Nueva York, 1952, pp. 142/lám. 91.

Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier, Museo del Prado. Catálogo de las pinturas, Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1972.

Other inventories +

Inv. Felipe V, Palacio Nuevo, 1747. Núm. 115.
PINTURAS EXISTENTES ANTIGUAS [...] En la primera Sala de este Oficio [...] {10333} 115 / Otra pintura de Isaac echando la bendicion a su hijo de tres varas y media de largo y dos menos tercia de caida original de Ribera el Españoleto en 6 mil rs.

Inv. Carlos III, Palacio Nuevo, 1772. Núm. 115.
Quarto del Infante Don Xavier [...] {13120} 115 / Otro [quadro original del Españoleto] de Isaac echando la bendición a su hijo Jacob de tres varas de largo y vara y media de caida

Inv. Testamentaría Carlos III, Palacio Nuevo, 1794. Núm. 115.
Pieza de trucos [...] {49} 115 / Tres varas de largo, y vara y media de alto / Ysaac, hechando la bendición á Jacob. Rivera; en ... 24.000

Inv. Fernando VII, Palacio Nuevo, 1814-1818. Núm. 115.
Pieza de Trucos [...] {21189} 115 / Tres varas largo vara y media de alto, Isaac echando la bendición a Jacob = Ribera

Museo Real de Pinturas a la muerte de Fernando VII, 1834. Núm. 115.
DEPÓSITO ENTRESUELO [...] Ciento quince. La Vendición de Jacob / Jose Ribera 1637 / Lº / 70.700

Inv. Real Museo, 1857. Núm. 485.
Ribera. / 485. La bendicion de Isaac. / Bendice el Patriarca á Jacob en lugar de Esaú, engañado por la industria de Rebeca. / Alto 4 pies, 7 pulg, 3 lin; Ancho 10 pies, 4 pulg, 6 lin.

Catálogo Museo del Prado, 1872-1907. Núm. 983.
983.-Jacob recibiendo la bendición de Isaac. / Alto 1,29.Ancho 2,89.-Lienzo / [Capítulo del Génesis] En un lecho cubierto con una colcha de seda encarnada, medio arrebujada, y bajo un cortinaje de la misma seda, está incorporado el anciano y ciego Isaac palpando el brazo derecho de su hijo Jacob, cubierto con una piel de cabrito, por industria de su madre, la cual espera detrás del mancebo el resultado de su engaño y le empuja por la espalda como para que no retroceda en la arriesgada empresa. Cubre el cuerpo del adolescente una vistosa tunicela azul, y el del padre anciano un jubon verde...

Inscriptions +

11[¿5?] [muy borrado]
Inscribed in red color. Front, lower left corner

115.
Inscribed in black. Back

- 115 -
Inscribed. Frame, back, upper bar

Exhibitions +

Calderón and Painting
Madrid
09.05.2023 - 10.09.2023

El Prado en el Hermitage
San Petersburgo
25.02.2011 - 29.05.2011

Caravaggio y la pintura realista europea
Barcelona
06.10.2005 - 15.01.2006

José de Ribera
Nueva York NY
15.09.1992 - 29.11.1992

José de Ribera
Madrid
02.06.1992 - 16.08.1992

José de Ribera
Nápoles
27.02.1992 - 17.05.1992

Location +

Room 009 (On Display)

Displayed objects +

Wine: Vino tinto

Knife: Cuchillo, con mango de material negro, posiblemente hasta.

Plate: Platos de metal plateado

Vial: Redoma de cuerpo esférico y cuello tubular estrecho, que ensancha ligeramente hacia la boca, reforzada por un engrosamiento del borde; en su parte inferior presenta un pie de forma circular. Parece contener vino tinto.
Empleadas para el servicio de agua y vino en la mesa

Home textile: Mantel blanco, con orla de vainica y flecos.

Update date: 10-05-2024 | Registry created on 28-04-2015

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