Joseph and Potiphar's Wife

1649

Guercino

Painter, Bolognese, 1591 - 1666

A nude woman with pale pink skin reclines under cream-white sheets in a bed as she reaches for the cloak of a man with light skin standing in front of the bed, who leans away with arms raised in this horizontal painting. The mattress runs along the bottom edge of the canvas, and the man is shown from the knees up. The woman’s bare torso faces us, hips stacked, as she turns her face to our right in profile, looking at the man. She props her body up with her right elbow, to our left, on a mauve-pink pillow. With that hand, she clutches the end of the man’s royal-blue cloak. With her other hand, she reaches with palm up across the body of the man toward his face. Her strawberry-blond hair is pulled back under a muted red ribbon, woven with pearls, and gathered at the nape of her neck. Soft curls frame her forehead and temple. A teardrop pearl earring dangles from her right earlobe. Her nose is long and slender, and her small, pale peach lips are slightly parted. The man’s body is angled toward the woman, to our left, but he twists and leans away, to our right. With elbow raised, he grips her extended forearm with his right hand, to our left. He raises his other arm with his palm out. He looks up with brown eyes under raised brows. His mouth is open and his head tipped sharply away from the woman so his chin-length, wavy, brown hair hangs by his face. He wears an ochre-yellow, thigh-length tunic over a white shirt. A thin olive-colored belt is tied in a bow at his waist. His vivid blue cloak wraps over his right upper arm, farther from us, around his torso and hips, and is pulled by the woman. Rose-pink, shiny curtains frame the scene in the upper corners, and beyond, the background is swallowed in shadow.

Media Options

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For this depiction of Joseph spurning the advances of his Egyptian employer's wife, as recounted in the Book of Genesis, Guercino chose a three-quarter length format that presses the life-sized figures close to the spectator. He has filled the scene with the bed -- all rumpled sheets and opulent curtains. As the temptress reaches for the strong and handsome Joseph, he struggles vigorously to extricate himself. But she holds tight to the vivid blue cloak and sets Joseph spinning like a top out of his garment. In panic, he turns his imploring eyes heavenward, seeming to realize that even if he escapes with his virtue unscathed, he is helplessly ensnared in an evil plot; Potiphar's wife, bejeweled and confident, will later use the cloak to support her denunciation of Joseph as the aggressor.

With a delicate play of light on the seductress' profile, the artist shows the very moment of lust shading into treachery. If Guercino's narration is clear and eloquent, his presentation of the moral implications is more subtle: as this woman's beauty conceals her wickedness, so the visual lushness of Guercino's painting disguises a serious lesson about righteous conduct.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/italian-paintings-17th-and-18th-centuries.pdf

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 33

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 123.2 x 158 cm (48 1/2 x 62 3/16 in.)
    framed: 148.3 x 185.1 x 10.2 cm (58 3/8 x 72 7/8 x 4 in.)

  • Accession

    1986.17.2

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned by Aurelio Zaneletti [or Zanoletti] of Reggio in 1649.[1] (Samuel Woodburn, 1820-1823).[2] Charles Stewart, 3d marquess of Londonderry [1778-1854], London, by 1833;[3] by descent to Alexander Charles Robert Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 9th marquess of Londonderry [b. 1937], Wynyard Park;[4] purchased 1986 by NGA.
[1] This painting and NGA 1986.17.1 were produced by Guercino between 1649 and 1650. Zaneletti was a collector from Reggio Emilia, and the artist's account book records on 10 March 1649 a down payment of twenty-one scudi by Zaneletti for a "quadro con due mezze figure." On 25 August of the same year Guercino recorded that he had received the final payment from Zaneletti of 150 scudi for the finished painting of a "fuga di Gioseppe." An entry in the account book of 26 March 1650 records another payment of 150 scudi from Zaneletti for a painting of Amnon and Tamar.
[2] That the dealer Samuel Woodburn purchased the painting and its companion in Italy and transported them to England is suggested by a series of letters from his good friend Sir Thomas Lawrence: published in D. E. Williams, The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, 2 vols., London, 1831; this reference was provided by Burton Fredericksen of The Getty Provenance Index (letter of 8 February 1988, NGA curatorial files). On 29 June 1820, Lawrence asked Samuel Woodburn, then on the continent, probably in Italy, "What will you sell the Potiphar's Wife for, unaccompanied by the other picture? Suppose you were to make up your mind to this, Lord D. likes the other best. There's a good chance of your selling the Potiphar's Wife to the M..." (Williams 1831: 2:280). Writing to Woodburn in Rome on 17 December 1822, Lawrence records the arrival at Calais of "the Guercinos" (Williams 1831: 2:281). In letters to Woodburn in Paris of early 1823 and of 8 March 1823, Lawrence says how much he likes "the Guercinos," especially the Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (Williams 1831: 2:294, 413). "The M" may be Lawrence's good friend and patron, Charles Stewart, who, however, succeeded to the marquesate of Londonderry only in 1822. Although Stewart owned the paintings by 1833 (see note 3), there is no record that he purchased them from Woodburn.
[3] M. Passavant, Tour of a German Artist in England, 2 vols., London, 1836: 178, mentions the paintings in the Londonderry collection, misidentifying the Amnon and Tamar as "Tarquin and Lucretia."
[4] M. Montgomery Hyde, Londonderry House and Its Pictures, London, 1937: 15, 56.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1986

  • The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, shown only at National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1986-1987, not in cat.

1991

  • Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Il Guercino 1591-1666, Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna, 1991, no. 122, color repro.

  • Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Il Guercino 1591-1666, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 1991-1992, no. 65, color repro.

1992

  • Guercino: Master Painter of the Baroque, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, no. 47, color repro.

1996

  • Obras Maestras de la National Gallery of Art de Washington, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City, 1996-1997, unnumbered catalogue, 64-65, color repro.

1999

  • Saints & Sinners: Caravaggio & the Baroque Image, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, 1999, pl. 25.

  • Seeing Double: Two Versions of Guercino's 'Joseph and Potiphar's Wife', Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, 1999, fig. 6.

Bibliography

1678

  • Malvasia, Carlo Cesare. Felsina Pittrice. Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi con aggiunte correzioni e note inedite deel'autore di Giampietro Zanotti e di altri scrittori. 2 vols. Bologna, 1678: ii, 376.

1841

  • Malvasia, Carlo Cesare. Felsina Pittrice. Vite de' Pittori Bolognesi con aggiunte correzioni e note inedite dell'autore di Giampietro Zanotti e di altri scrittori. 2 vols. Bologna, 1974: 267, 329-330 (originally published 1678).

1968

  • Mahon, Denis. Il Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, 1591-1666: Catalogo critico dei dipinti). Exh. cat. Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, Bologna, 1968: 188.

1982

  • Artioli, Nerio, and Elio Monducci, with Denis Mahon. Dipinti "reggiani" del Bonone e del Guercino. Exh. cat. Basilica della B.V. della Ghiara, Reggio Emilia, 1982: 108-110, cat. 20-21 (not exhibited).

1986

  • Mahon, Denis. In The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986-1987. Washington, D.C., 1986: 481 n. 2.

1988

  • Salerno, Luigi. I dipinti del Guercino. Rome, 1988: 332-333, no. 261-262, color repro.

1989

  • Mahon, Denis, and Nicholas Turner. The Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle. Cambridge, 1989: 192, no. 657.

  • Willette, Thomas. "Guercino's Paintings of 'Joseph with the Wife of Potiphar' and 'Amnon and Tamar,' and Research on Massimo Stanzione." Center, Research Reports and Record of Activities 9 (1989): 97-98.

1991

  • Mazza, Angelo. La collezione dei dipinti antichi della Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena. Bologna, 1991: 147.

  • Russell, Francis. "Guercino in England." In Guercino in Britain. Paintings from British Collections. Exh. cat. National Gallery, London. The Burlington Magazine 133, suppl. London, 1991: 10, figs. 10-11.

  • Stone, David. Guercino, Master Draftsman. Works from North American Collections. Exh. cat. Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bologna, 1991: 74-76, figs. 29b-c; 222.

  • Stone, David. Guercino: catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1991: 255-257, no. 245, color repro.

  • Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille, ed. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, Il Guercino, 1591-1666. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; Cento, Pinacoteca Civica; Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Bologna, 1991: no. 121, repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 111, repro. (not in 1995 rev. ed.).

  • Mahon, Denis, et al. Guercino: Master Painter of the Baroque. Exh. cat. Bologna, Museo civico archeologico; Frankfurt, Schirn Kunsthalle; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1992: no. 47, repro.

1996

  • De Grazia, Diane, and Eric Garberson, with Edgar Peters Bowron, Peter M. Lukehart, and Mitchell Merling. Italian Paintings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 162-170, color repro. 165.

1997

  • Il libro dei conti del Guercino, 1629-1666. Ed. Barbara Ghelfi. Bologna, 1997: 142-143, no. 403, 408.

1999

  • Seeing Double: Two Versions of Guercino's 'Joseph and Potiphar's Wife'. Exh. cat. Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, 1999: fig. 6, color repro.

2005

  • Fahy, Everett, ed. The Wrightsman Pictures. New Haven, 2005: 142, under cat. 39, fig. 2.

Wikidata ID

Q20177260

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