Rebecca at the Well

c. 1582/1588

Veronese

Painter, Venetian, 1528 - 1588

Italian 16th Century

Painter

Three men, one woman, and three camels gather around the stone ledge of a well in this horizontal landscape painting. Along the left edge of the composition and on the far side of the well, a man with brown skin and short, black hair faces away from us as he reaches for the reins of two camels, one of which looks at or toward us. This man wears an emerald-green shirt under a canary-yellow tunic, which is tied in place with a strap over one shoulder. With her back to that man, a woman with pale, white skin stands angled toward the two light-skinned men who stand to our right, in the center of the painting. Light falls across this trio, and the woman’s face is especially bright against the muted blues of the sky behind her. Her blond hair is braided and coiled at the back of her head. Her white shirt has puffy, short sleeves, and is covered with sheer, gold fabric, like a vest. Salmon-pink fabric wraps across her shoulders and under her bust, and the light glints off the folds of her full, pink skirt. She touches her left wrist, to our right, with her other hand, and wears bracelets on both arms. A copper-colored pot sits on the ledge next to her, to our left. She looks toward a man who kneels as he holds up a handful of gold coins or jewelry. His body is angled away from us, and we see him in profile facing our left, the bottom of his face hidden by his raised arm. He wears a tunic striped with fawn brown and white, and short, teal-green pants come to mid-thigh. His knees are bare, and he wears peach-colored, shin-high boots. A buttercup-yellow robe is tied over one shoulder and around his waist, and he wears a close-fitting green cap, the same color as his pants. Just beyond him, a balding man with a trimmed, gray beard leans toward and looks at the woman. He wears an apricot-orange tunic under an ocean-blue cape. He gestures with one hand to the gold and props his other hand on a tall walking stick. A camel behind him faces our right in profile with coral-pink fabric draped over its hump. The camel’s head is near a tree with a bush growing at its base. A chest with a rounded top sits near the tree. Another camel peeks its face into the scene from the upper right corner, and a fifth drinks from another copper-colored vessel in the lower right. Gray rocks are scattered on the earth along the bottom edge of the painting, and a stick leans against the side of the well close to us. Beyond the tree and the camels to our right, a town with oyster-white buildings lines the horizon in the distance. The sky above is streaked with navy blue, steel gray, tan, and mauve pink. The weave of the canvas is visible in some areas, especially the sky.

Media Options

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Rebecca went to the well outside her city and encountered a stranger who identified her as the answer to his prayers. The backstory, according to Genesis 24:11–22, is that the aged Abraham wanted a wife for his son Isaac and sent his senior steward to his homeland of Mesopotamia to find a suitable woman. Tired after his long journey, the steward stopped at a well and prayed for guidance. When Rebecca came to get water, she offered it to the old man and his camels, and he recognized her as the appointed bride and presented her with the betrothal jewels of a gold earring and two bracelets. In Veronese’s depiction, the jewels are offered by a kneeling servant, while Abraham’s steward stands behind him.

This painting is one of a series of ten biblical scenes by Veronese or his workshop, five of which show scenes from the Old Testament and five from the New. Based on their style, they date from the 1580s, the last decade of the painter’s life. The ten canvases are nearly identical in size and shape and were clearly commissioned as a cycle for a particular building, but the identity of the patron remains a mystery.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 24

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 145.5 x 282.7 cm (57 5/16 x 111 5/16 in.)
    framed: 175.3 x 313.1 x 10.2 cm (69 x 123 1/4 x 4 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.82

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century: Rebecca at the Well, c. 1582/1588

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Sixteenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Charles de Croy, 4th duc d'Arschot [1560-1612], Château de Beaufort, Hainaut;[1] his estate; purchased 1619 from his widow, Dorothée, by George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham [1592-1628], York House, London;[2] by inheritance to his son, George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham [1628-1687], York House;[3] purchased 1650 in Antwerp by Leopold Wilhelm, archduke of Austria [1614-1662], on behalf of his brother, Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor [1608-1657], and brought to Prague;[4] Hapsburg Imperial Collection, Prague Castle, until 1876, and then Vienna;[5] Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; sold February 1952 through (M. Knoedler & Co., London, New York, and Paris) to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[6] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] The picture is listed, together with its companion-pieces by Veronese, in the posthumous inventory of 1613 of the duke’s collection in his castle of Beaufort in Hainaut, no. 52: “Une pièce encoire sur thoille du susdit maistre, longue et large, et ces molures commes les précédentes, contenant la représentation d’une femme aiant les bras demy nud avecq ung viellard, ung nein, ung moriaume et pluisieurs chamaux” (A picture on canvas by the aforementioned master [Veronese], of the same dimensions and framing as the others, showing a woman with half-bare arms, an old man, a dwarf, a moor, and several camels). See Alexandre Pinchart, “La collection de Charles de Croy, duc d’Arschot, dans son château de Beaumont,” Archives des Arts, Sciences, et Lettres 1 (1860): 164. Before the series was bought by the Duke of Buckingham in 1619, other English collectors, including the Earls of Somerset and Arundel, were alerted by their agents that they were available for purchase. See Philip McEvansoneya, “Some Documents Concerning the Patronage and Collections of the Duke of Buckingham,” Rutgers Art Review 8 (1987): 29 n. 18; Beverly Louise Brown, “The So-Called Duke of Buckingham Series,” in Nuovi studi su Paolo Veronese, edited by Massimo Gemin, Venice, 1990: 231-232; Philip McEvansoneya, “Italian Paintings in the Buckingham Collection,” in The Evolution of English Collecting:. The Reception of Italian Art in the Tudor and Stuart Periods, edited by Edward Chaney, New Haven and London, 2003: 320. Charles de Croy's widow was his second wife and his first cousin once removed; they were married in 1605 and she died in 1661.
[2] The painting was acquired by Balthasar Gerbier in Antwerp in July 1619 on behalf of the Duke of Buckingham. See Philip McEvansoneya, “Some Documents Concerning the Patronage and Collections of the Duke of Buckingham,” Rutgers Art Review 8 (1987): 29; Philip McEvansoneya, “Italian Paintings in the Buckingham Collection,” in The Evolution of English Collecting: The Reception of Italian Art in the Tudor and Stuart Periods, edited by Edward Chaney, New Haven and London, 2003: 320.
[3] The picture, described as “Paulo Veroneso. Abraham’s Servt and Rebecca,” is included in the 1635 inventory of Buckingham’s collection at York House in the Strand. See Randall Davies, “An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham’s Pictures, etc., at York House in 1635,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 10, no. 48 (March 1907): 381.
[4] Brian Fairfax, A Catalogue of the Curious Collection of Pictures of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham . . ., London, 1758: 7, no. 5 (of the list of paintings by Veronese). For the sending of the greater part of the Buckingham collection to Amsterdam for safekeeping in 1648 and the circumstances of its acquisition by Leopold Wilhelm on behalf of the emperor, see Klara Garas, “Die Sammlung Buckingham und die kaiserliche Galerie,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 40 (1987): 114-115; and Philip McEvansoneya, “The Sequestration and Dispersal of the Buckingham Collection,” Journal of the History of Collections 8 (1996): 133-154.
[5] The picture is recorded in the Prague inventories of 1685 and 1718, no. 478, and 1737, no. 486: see Karl Köpl, “Urkunden, Akten, Regesten, und Inventare aus dem K. K. Statthalterei-Archiv in Prag,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 10 (1889), cxxxviii and clxi. It is still recorded in Prague by Woltmann 1877, but in Vienna by Engerth 1884: Alfred Woltmann, “Die Gemäldesammlung in der kaiserlichen Burg zu Prag,” Mittheilungen der K. K. Central-Commission, N. F., Vienna (1877): 44-45; Eduard R. von Engerth, Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Gemälde, vol. 1: Italienische, Spanische und Französische Schulen, Vienna, 1884: 401. See also Jaromír Neumann, The Picture Gallery of Prague Castle, Prague, 1967: 290; Klara Garas, “Die Sammlung Buckingham und die kaiserliche Galerie,” Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 40 (1987): 118.
[6] M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Series II, Sales Book 16, Paintings, 1945 January-1953 June, page 383, no. CA3945 (copy in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1761).

Associated Names

Bibliography

1877

  • Woltmann, Alfred. “Die Gemäldesammlung in der kaiserlichen Burg zu Prag.” Mittheilungen der K. K. Central-Commission, N. F. Vienna (1877): 44-45.

1884

  • Engerth, Eduard R. von. Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Gemälde, vol. 1: Italienische, Spanische und Französische Schulen. Vienna, 1884: 401.

1893

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1934

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1956

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1957

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1959

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1960

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1961

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1963

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1965

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1966

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1967

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1968

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1972

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1973

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1975

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1976

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1979

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1980

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1981

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  • Campbell, Lorne. "Notes on Netherlandish Pictures in the Veneto in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries." The Burlington Magazine 123, no. 941 (August 1981): 473.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 215, no. 262, color repro.

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1985

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1987

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1988

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1989

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1990

  • Brown, Beverly Louise. “The So-Called Duke of Buckingham Series.” In Nuovi studi su Paolo Veronese. Edited by Massimo Gemin. Venice, 1990: 235.

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1991

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1995

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1996

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1999

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2004

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2008

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2013

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Wikidata ID

Q20176796

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