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Date : near 1485
Material : Tempera on canvas, Gold sheet
| Item 2 on 13
European Painting
Painting
Area related
Italy
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| Description |  |
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Designed as a decorative wall panel, this work depicts episodes from the life of the Old Testament patriarch Joseph in a series of narratives beginning in the left background. To make the story easier to follow, inscriptions identify the principal characters. The graceful figures and classicizing architecture are characteristic of the artist and his contemporaries in Florence.
In the left-hand loggia, Jacob, seated on a throne, sends Joseph to his half-brothers tending sheep in the field. In the far left corner, the brothers, jealous of their father's love for Joseph, strip him of his jacket and throw him into a pit. Passing merchants purchase the young boy from his brothers for twenty pieces of silver. In the background to the right, the merchants board the ship that will take them and their cargo to Egypt. In the right-hand loggia, the brothers show a blood-smeared coat to their father as evidence that Joseph is dead. With his head in his hand, Jacob mourns his son, whom he believes to be dead.
A companion panel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts the next sequence of events in Joseph's life.
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