The Marriage in Cana
Gustave Doré, 1866 · John 2:5
The passage
His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
John 2:5
About this plate
A striped awning stretched over a terrace, and under it a long table of guests seen end-on, a row of heads receding into shade. The feast is the background. The foreground, lit and close, is the servants: men bent over enormous stone water jars, one tipping a pitcher, another straining under the weight.
Doré has turned the picture inside out. The miracle is a matter of household logistics, so he gives the whole front of the plate to the labour and pushes the wedding, the bridegroom and the astonished steward into the dark.
That is precisely what the verse does too. John gives Mary one line and it is an instruction to the staff: Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. She does not address her son again. She turns to the servants, and the story proceeds through people whose names are not recorded.
Six jars, two or three firkins apiece. Somebody had to fill them to the brim with water, by hand, from a well, while the party went on behind them. Doré draws those men.
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