Eliezer and Rebekah
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Genesis 24:16
The passage
And the damsel was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up.
Genesis 24:16
About this plate
A well beside a stone wall. Rebekah stands in the centre in white with a heavy jar braced on her hip and a rope in her hand, looking down. Eliezer is on the right, hooded, half-kneeling against the stones, looking up at her. Behind them a line of women with jars comes down the path, and the camels are on the rise beyond with their drivers.
Dore stages it as an interview neither party has admitted is happening. She is doing an ordinary evening job. He is a stranger sitting on the ground at a well, and the whole future of a family is resting on whether she offers him a drink. The camels in the background are the pressure in the scene, ten of them, all thirsty.
The jar is the detail worth having. It is huge, and she is carrying it as though it weighs nothing, and she is about to offer to water ten camels as well. Genesis says she hasted and emptied her pitcher. Dore draws someone strong enough for that to be an offer rather than a gesture.
Swipe left or right for the next plate