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Jacob and Esau

A work made of charcoal, pen and brown ink, and brush and brown washes, heightened with opaque white watercolor, on pieced cream laid paper, laid down on blue laid paper, ruled in pen and brown ink, laid down on tan laid paper.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of charcoal, pen and brown ink, and brush and brown washes, heightened with opaque white watercolor, on pieced cream laid paper, laid down on blue laid paper, ruled in pen and brown ink, laid down on tan laid paper.

Date:

c. 1655

Artist:

Jacob Jordaens
Flemish, 1593-1678

About this artwork

This energetic drawing represents the moment when Jacob compels his older twin brother, Esau, to exchange his birthright for a bowl of stew. The brothers are surrounded by their mother, two maidservants, and two dogs. Jacob Jordaens set this Old Testament narrative in a domestic setting and filled it to the point of bursting. Indeed, the composition outgrew the original boundaries of the drawing support, prompting Jordaens to extend it by adding strips of paper to all four sides in order to complete his work.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Jacob Jordaens

Title

Jacob and Esau

Place

Flanders (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1650–1660

Medium

Charcoal, pen and brown ink, and brush and brown washes, heightened with opaque white watercolor, on pieced cream laid paper, laid down on blue laid paper, ruled in pen and brown ink, laid down on tan laid paper

Inscriptions

Inscribed on mount, upper right, in pen and black ink: "no. 43";  on mount, lower right, in graphite: "J. Jordaens fL / XL 129"; verso of mount, upper left, in graphite: "__X / AS" (partially obscured by hinge); lower left, in graphite: "18,20/ ¾ Hg"; lower left, in pen and brown ink: “2 ·2”; verso, lower right, in graphite: "J. Jordaens."

Dimensions

Primary support: 25.4 × 29.7 cm (10 × 11 3/4 in.); Secondary/tertiary supports: 32.2 × 36.6 cm (12 11/16 × 14 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection

Reference Number

2014.1

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/218914/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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