Jacob Keeping Laban's Flocks
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Genesis 29:20
The passage
And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.
Genesis 29:20
About this plate
A stone well in the near left corner with a rope over its lip. A woman stands beside it, a tall two-handled jar up on her shoulder, her head lowered and her eyes down. Far over on the right, small, a shepherd sits up on a rock with his crook against his shoulder. Between them a flock of sheep and a lot of open ground. Wide pale sky over everything.
Dore has put them in the same frame and then put as much distance between them as the frame allows. She is large, close, and in full light. He is a silhouette at the other edge. Nothing happens between them in this picture, and that is the picture.
The verse is about time, not events. Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her. There is no scene to draw there, so Dore draws the waiting instead: one well, one flock, one long look across a field.
She is not looking at him. Her eyes are down on the jar.
Swipe left or right for the next plate