The Meeting of Isaac and Rebekah
Gustave Doré, 1866 · Genesis 24:65
The passage
For she had said unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us? And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and covered herself.
Genesis 24:65
About this plate
A caravan coming in out of a blaze of light. Camels, a canopy held over one of the riders, and a crowd of travellers so washed out by the sun behind them that half of them are only outlines. On the right, stone steps go up to a columned building. An older man on the steps has thrown one arm up in greeting. A young woman stands at the top with a hand at her mouth. In the left foreground three veiled women watch without moving.
Dore has put the glare behind the arriving party and kept the household in shadow on the right. So the two halves of the plate are not just two groups of people, they are two different kinds of visibility. The ones arriving cannot really be made out. The ones waiting can.
The verse is a question and an answer. She asks what man is this that walketh in the field to meet us, the servant tells her it is his master, and she takes a vail and covers herself. It is the last thing she does before the marriage, and it is a decision to be less seen.
In a plate this full of looking, the one person who matters is about to put a cloth over her face.
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