The Finding of Moses
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Exodus 2:6
The passage
And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children.
Exodus 2:6
About this plate
The basket is at the far left, low in shallow water among the reeds, with the child in it. Everyone else is at the right: the princess standing in an elaborate headdress, her attendants ranked behind her in long striped robes, one of them holding a staff. Between the two, an attendant kneels in the water with her arm out toward the basket, and she is the only figure in motion.
Doré leaves a great deal of empty water in the middle of the plate. That gap is the composition. The distance between the Egyptian court and the Hebrew child is drawn to scale, and one servant is crossing it.
The stripes are worth a moment. Almost every robe is vertically banded, and so are the reeds, and so is the flat river surface — the whole picture is ruled in parallel lines, and the round basket is the one thing in it that isn't.
The verse turns on a single detail: behold, the babe wept. Not that she recognised him, not that she reasoned it out. He cried, and that decided it. Doré cannot draw a sound, so he draws the reaching arm instead.
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