The Miraculous Draft of Fishes

The Miraculous Draft of Fishes, painted by Konrad Witz in 1444, depicts the Gospel of John episode in which the disciples, after a fruitless night of fishing, haul in a net full of fish at the word of a stranger on the shore. That stranger is the risen Christ, who dominates the right foreground in a vivid red cloak and casts no reflection on the water, a hint that he stands outside the laws of nature. The apostles, shown with ordinary faces despite their halos, struggle with the nets in the boat. The real novelty lies in the landscape. Witz moves the scene from the Sea of Galilee to the shores of Lake Geneva and records the mountains behind it, such as Mont Blanc, Le Môle and the Salève, closely enough that they can still be identified today. It is among the earliest Western landscapes of this kind, unlike the more imagined backdrops of earlier painters. The water, rendered in transparent glazes that reveal the lake bed and in reflections that distort the shapes above, shows a new interest in optics. The heads of the figures were repainted after damage during the Protestant iconoclasm.

Painter

Konrad Witz

Date

1444

Medium

wood, oil paint

Dimensions

132 × 151 cm

Museum

Museum of Art and History Geneva, Geneva

Movement

Northern Renaissance

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Jesus Christ, Le Môle, Mont Blanc, Miraculous catch of fish

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