Joseph Sold by His Brethren
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Genesis 37:28
The passage
Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.
Genesis 37:28
About this plate
A crowded, jostling scene on rocky ground. The Ishmeelite caravan comes in from the top left, camels loaded high with a merchant riding. In the middle Joseph is being pulled forward by the arm, young and bare-headed, in a plain light robe. His brothers press round him, one taking money, one turning away. On the right a knot of onlookers watches with no expression at all.
Dore refuses to make it a tragedy. There is no dramatic gesture, no upraised knife, no lightning. It is a transaction in a crowd, conducted at speed, with people haggling and a boy being handed over in the middle of it. The ordinariness is what makes it hard to look at.
Look for the coat. It is not in the picture. The brothers have already taken it, and Joseph is going down to Egypt in an undershirt while the thing that started the whole quarrel is somewhere off the edge of the frame, waiting to be dipped in blood.
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