Rebecca and Eliezer

Rebecca and Eliezer is one of the biblical paintings by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo held in the Prado Museum in Madrid. It depicts an episode from the Book of Genesis: Abraham sends his servant Eliezer to find a wife for his son Isaac among his relatives rather than among the Canaanite women of the land where they lived. After a long journey with ten camels, the servant stops by a well and asks God for a sign: that the young woman who gives water to him will also offer drink to the animals. Rebecca then appears and fulfils that condition. The painting captures that very moment, when the servant receives water from her with a gesture of gratitude.

What stands out most is the way Murillo moves the story into an everyday setting. He does not place the scene in Mesopotamia or in an eastern landscape; instead he turns it into a popular Andalusian scene. Rebecca and her companions with their water jars look like girls from a Seville neighbourhood or a village in seventeenth-century Andalusia, and only the clothing and a few details recall the biblical world. The setting around the fountain, with its close and natural figures, would have been recognisable to viewers of his time, which goes a long way to explaining the work's appeal.

The well episode was one of the most frequently painted passages from Genesis, and within that tradition Murillo's canvas stands out for its gentle tone and its human warmth. The composition focuses on the exchange between Rebecca and Eliezer, while the other figures accompany the scene without drawing attention away from it. Warm light and colour unify a group in which the sacred and the everyday coexist without strain.

The painting is generally regarded as a good example of how Murillo adapted religious subjects to viewers who could recognise their own lives in them.

Painter

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Date

1660

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

108 × 152 cm

Museum

Museo del Prado, Madrid

Genre

religious art

Depicts

fountain

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