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Your galleryThe Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek
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Follow the bowing old man toward the tall robed figure, then look down at the animals, dishes and tipped-over barrel scattered across the foreground.
The Book of Genesis tells how Melchizedek blessed Abraham. Tiepolo turns the meeting into a crowded open-air scene, with soldiers and their spears on the left and an old man bowing toward a tall robed figure beside a stone block. The Art Institute dates the drawing to about 1719, when Tiepolo was in his early twenties.
Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, over black chalk, on ivory laid paper · 37 × 51.1 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Rococo
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek
- Artist
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Italian, 1696–1770
- Date
- c. 1719
- Medium
- Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, over black chalk, on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- 37 × 51.1 cm (14 5/8 × 20 1/8 in.)
- Credit line
- Given in memory of Carl O. Schniewind
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.