Jacob Goeth into Egypt
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Genesis 46:5
The passage
And Jacob rose up from Beersheba: and the sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.
Genesis 46:5
About this plate
An old man with a long white beard sits high up on a camel, so wrapped and so still that he is almost part of the animal's harness. The camel is hung with tassels and bells. Around and below him the whole household is moving: women with jars on their heads and shoulders, a young man in front with a staff across his back and a jar in his hand, a figure pointing the way at the left. The bottom third of the plate is nothing but sheep. The light is going.
Dore builds this one as a column. Jacob is at the top, the people are in the middle, the animals are at the bottom, and all of it is pushing in one direction out of the frame. Nobody is looking back.
The verse makes a point of who was doing the carrying. The sons of Israel carried Jacob their father, and their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him. The old man is not travelling. He is being moved.
The verse says wagons. Dore has drawn camels.
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