Jacob and Esau
Jacob Jordaens (Flemish, 1593-1678)
c. 1655
- 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
- Classification
- Drawing and Watercolor
- 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.)
- Culture
- Flanders
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
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.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
