Finding of Moses

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Prado
, 1633, one of two versions

The Finding of Moses, sometimes called Moses in the Bulrushes, Moses Saved from the Waters,[1] or other variants, is the story in chapter 2 of the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible of the finding in the River Nile of Moses as a baby by the daughter of Pharaoh. The story became a common subject in art, especially from the Renaissance onwards.

Depictions in Jewish and Islamic art are much less frequent, but some Christian depictions show details derived from extra-biblical Jewish texts. The earliest surviving depiction in art is a fresco in the Dura-Europos synagogue, datable to around 244 AD, whose motif of a "naked princess" bathing in the river has been related to much later art. A contrasting tradition, beginning in the Renaissance, gave great attention to the rich costumes of the princess and her retinue.

Moses was a central figure in Jewish tradition, and was given a variety of different significances in Christian thought. He was regarded as a typological precursor of Christ, but could at times also be regarded as a precursor or allegorical representation of things as diverse as the pope, Venice, the Dutch Republic, or Louis XIV.

The subject also represented a case of a foundling or abandoned child, a significant social issue into modern times. The subject is unusual in standard history painting that it requires a number of female figures, but apart from the baby no male figures are necessary. The opportunity of depicting female nudes was taken by many painters.

Cornelis de Vos, c. 1633

Biblical account

Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom
, 1630s

Chapter 1:15–22 of the Book of Exodus recounts how during the captivity in Egypt of the Jewish people, the Pharaoh ordered: "Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live." Chapter 2 begins with the birth of Moses, and continues:

When she [Moses' mother] saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister [Miriam] stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies", she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?"

8 "Yes, go," she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, "I drew him out of the water."[2]

Visualizing the biblical account

The biblical account allows for a variety of compositions. There are several different moments in the story, which are quite often compressed or combined in depictions, and the moment shown, and even the identity of the figures, is often unclear. In particular, Miriam and Moses's mother, traditionally given the name

Jochabed, may be thought to be included in the group around the princess.[3]

The Hebrew word usually translated as "basket" in verse 3 can also mean "ark", or small boat.

Bible Moralisée
type.

The Exposition of Moses, as his mother casts him off. The princess's party is further down the bank. Nicolas Poussin

The less common preceding scene of Moses being left in the reeds is formally called The Exposition of Moses.[7] In some depictions this is shown in the distance as a subsidiary scene, and some cycles, mostly illustrating books, show both scenes. In some cases it may be hard to distinguish between the two; usually the Exposition includes Moses' mother and sister, and sometimes his father and other figures.

Rivka Ulmer identifies recurrent "issues" in the iconography of the subject:[8]

  1. Is Moses in an ark or basket?
  2. The type of hand gesture of Pharaoh's daughter;
  3. Who enters the Nile to fetch Moses?
  4. The number and the gender of the "handmaids";
  5. What role, if any, is assigned to the River Nile?
  6. The presence or absence of Egyptian artifacts.

Christian art

Medieval

Detail of multi-scene miniature in the Eadwine Psalter, Canterbury, 1150s

Medieval depictions are sometimes found in

Papacy.[13]

Cycles with the life of Moses were not common, but where they exist they may begin with this subject if they have more than about four scenes.

Bible Moralisée and related types, some of which give the story more than one image.[16]

Gothic misericord, Amiens Cathedral

The depiction in the 12th-century English Eadwine Psalter has a naked female swimmer in the water, holding the empty ark with one hand, while a clothed female with her feet in the water holds out the baby to the princess, who reclines on a bed or litter. This is part of some 11 scenes of the life of Moses.[17] This may relate to the Jewish visual traditions covered below.[18]

The artist of a French Romanesque capital has enjoyed himself showing the infant Moses threatened by crocodiles and perhaps hippos, as often shown in classical depictions of the Nile landscape. This very rare treatment in fact anticipates modern Biblical criticism: "The cameo of the birth of Moses does not fit the reality of the Nile, where crocodiles would make it dangerous to send a babe in a basket onto the water or even to bathe by the shore: even if the poor were forced to take the risk, no princess would".[19]

Renaissance onwards

Nicolas Poussin, 1647 (the "Pointel" version), Louvre. Men hunt hippos from a boat behind.

The walls of the

Moses Leaving for Egypt now begins the cycle.[20]

Independent pictures of the subject became increasingly popular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, when the combination of several elegantly dressed and graceful ladies with a waterside landscape or classical architectural background made it attractive to artists and patrons.[21] For Venice the story had a special resonance with the early history of the city.[22] These paintings were for homes and palaces, sometimes for foundling hospitals.

Niccolò dell'Abbate, c. 1570, Louvre

In addition,

billiards room at the Palace of Versailles, paired with Eliezer and Rebecca;[25]
possibly the idea was to encourage those winning bets on the game to give their winnings to charity.

The 17th century saw the height of popularity for the subject, with

epic poem, Moyse sauvé between about 1638 and 1653.[28]

Bonifazio de' Pitati, 1545, Brera, Milan
, 175 × 345 cm

As well as the Catholic countries, there were also a number of versions in

Vermeer may represent knowledge and science, as Moses was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians".[30]

A painting by

Bonifazio de' Pitati of 1545 was perhaps the first large and elaborate treatment of the subject to concentrate on a larger courtly group, entirely using carefully depicted contemporary costumes; he painted at least one smaller similar version of the subject.[31] Bonifazio painted a number of biblical subjects as "modern aristocratic reality", which was already an established pictorial mode in Venice.[32] This is essentially a large aristocratic picnic, complete with musicians, dwarves, many dogs and a monkey, and strolling lovers, where the baby represents an object of polite curiosity.[33] A Niccolò dell'Abbate from c. 1570, now in the Louvre, represents a more classical treatment, with the same "classical" costumes and atmosphere as his mythological subjects. This is closely followed by a number of compositions by Veronese, using the modern dress of his day.[34]

One of several treatments by Veronese, 1580s, Dijon.

The paintings of Veronese and others, especially Venetians,[5] offered some of the attractions of subjects from pagan mythology, but with a subject with a Christian context. Veronese had been called before the Inquisition in 1573 for his indecorous depiction of the Last Supper as an extravagant festivity mainly in modern dress, in what he renamed The Feast in the House of Levi. Since the Finding certainly called for a party of lavishly dressed court ladies and their attendants, it avoided such objections.[35]

Veronese's costumes, contemporary when he painted them in the 1570s and 1580s, became established as a sort of standard, and were copied and repeated in new compositions by a number of Venetian painters in the 18th century, during a "Veronese revival".

National Gallery of Scotland dates from the 1730s or 1740s, but avoids the fashion of that period and bases its costumes on a Veronese now in Dresden, but in Venice until 1747;[37] another Tiepolo now in the National Gallery of Victoria uses the style of Veronese even more thoroughly.[38]

National Gallery of Scotland
, probably 1730s, now 202 × 342 cm

Nicolas Poussin was attracted both to subjects from the life of Moses and history subjects with an Egyptian setting.[39] His figures wore the 17th-century idea of ancient dress, and the cityscapes in the distant background include pyramids and obelisks, where previously most artists, for example, Veronese, had not attempted to represent a specifically Egyptian setting.[40] An exception is Niccolò dell'Abbate, whose broadly painted cityscape include several prominent triangular elements, although some might be gable-ends. Palm trees are also sometimes seen; European artists, even in the north, had been used to depicting these from painting the "Miracle of the Palm" on the Flight into Egypt in particular.

For good measure the main three versions by Poussin all include a Roman-style Nilus, the god or personification of the Nile, reclining with a cornucopia, in two of them in company with a sphinx,[41] which follows a specific classical statue in the Vatican.[42] His 1647 version for the banker Pointel (now Louvre) includes a hippopotamus hunt on the river in the background, adapted from the Roman Nile mosaic of Palestrina.[43] In a discussion at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1688, the painting was criticised for two breaches of artistic decorum: the princess' skin was too dark, and the pagan god was inappropriate in a biblical subject. Both details were corrected in a version in tapestry, though the sphinx survived.[44] Poussin's treatments show awareness of much of the scholarly interest in Moses in terms of what we now call comparative religion.[45]

Thereafter attempts at an authentic Egyptian setting were spasmodic, until the start of the 19th century, with the advent of modern Egyptology, and in art the development of Orientalism. By the late 19th-century exotic decor was often dominant, and several depictions concentrated on the ladies of the court, naked but for carefully researched jewellery. The reed beds in the Bible are often given prominence.[46] The extensive history of the scene in the cinema began in 1905, the year after Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema finished his painting, with the Finding the opening scene in a 5-minute biographical film by the French company Pathé.[47]

Orientalist depictions

Jewish art and traditions

Dura-Europos synagogue, c. 244

The earliest visual depiction of the Finding is a

Late Antiquity.[51]

From the Golden Haggadah, Catalonia, c. 1320

Jewish textual traditions elaborate on the text in

leper, who was bathing in the river to cleanse herself, seen as a ritual purification for which she would be naked. As at Dura-Europos, Jewish depictions often include her, and sometimes other women, standing naked in the river.[52] According to Rabbinic tradition, as soon as the princess touched the ark carrying Moses she was healed.[53]

Poussin, 1638, Louvre, with the male "swimmer" from Josephus
, and a personification of the Nile at left.

The earliest surviving Christian depiction is a fresco of the 4th century in the Catacomb of Via Latina, Rome. Four figures are on the bank, with Moses still in the water; the largest is the princess, who stretches out her arms, which the baby also does. This gesture may derive from a textual variation found in Midrashic sources and the Aramaic translation of the Bible. In these "she ... sent her female slave" is changed to "she stretched out her arm".[54] Though the context is Christian, many of the images here are of Old Testament subjects,[55] and very likely reflect models adopted from an initially Jewish visual tradition, perhaps painted by artisans with sets of models for all religious requirements. In the play Exagōgē by Ezekiel the Tragedian (3rd century BC), Moses recounts his finding, saying of the princess "And straightway seeing me, she took me up", which may be reflected both in the New Testament Acts 7:20, and in artistic depictions where the princess is apparently first to grasp the ark.[56]

The motif of the naked princess standing in the water, sometimes accompanied by naked maids, reappears in Jewish manuscript illuminations from Spanish workshops in the late Middle Ages, along with some other details of iconography found in the Dura-Europos synagogue.[57] In the 14th-century Golden Haggadah there are three, while Moses' sister Miriam sits on the bank watching them.[58] Other works include the so-called "Sister of the Golden Haggadah" manuscript, and the (Christian) Pamplona Bibles.[59] By contrast, the 18th-century Venice Haggadah has been influenced by local Christian depictions, and shows a clothed princess on land.[60]

A different tradition is first found in

Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom from the 1630s, and Poussin's 1651 composition. The only painting of the subject from Rembrandt's studio shows several naked women who have apparently just come out of the water, bringing the basket.[63]

Islamic art

Jami' al-tawarikh, c. 1310, Edinburgh

There is an unusual depiction in the

Qur'an and Islamic tradition, it is Pharaoh's wife, Asiya, who rescues the baby, not his daughter. Here the baby Moses remains in his "ark", which is carried along a river with curling Chinese-style waves towards the women.[64]

The queen is in the river with an attendant, both at least clothed in undergarments (more clothes seem to be hanging from a tree branch), and an older servant, or Moses' mother, on the bank. The ark appears enclosed and solid; it looks rather like an elongated coffin, perhaps because the artist was unfamiliar with the subject. There are few comparable Islamic world histories, and like other scenes in the Jami' al-tawarikh, this may be all but unique in Islamic miniatures. The composition may be derived from Byzantine depictions.[65]

This manuscript has seven miniatures of the life of Moses, an unprecedented number perhaps suggesting a special identification with Moses by the author

Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, a convert from Judaism who became chief minister of Persia.[66]

Leading depictions

Comparative

Zalpuwa is the setting for an ancient legend about the Queen of

Kanesh, which was either composed in or translated into the Hittite language:[67]

"[The Queen] of Kanesh once bore thirty sons in a single year. She said: 'What a horde is this which I have born[e]!' She caulked(?) baskets with fat, put her sons in them, and launched them in the river. The river carried them down to the sea at the land of Zalpuwa. Then the gods took them up out of the sea and reared them. When some years had passed, the queen again gave birth, this time to thirty daughters. This time she herself reared them."

See also

Notes

  1. ^ This is rarely used in English, but standard in the Latin languages, eg Moïse sauvé des eaux is the normal title in French.
  2. ^ Exodus 2, New International Version (NIV); Yavneh, 53–56, analyses the passage and later interpretations of it at length.
  3. ^ Wine, 370–371, on the London Poussin; Yavneh, 61, on the Prado Veronese, both disagreeing with other art historians on who figures represent in particular depictions.
  4. ^ Note to text as quoted above
  5. ^ a b Hall, 213
  6. ^ Natif, 18, for Byzantine and Islamic examples
  7. ^ Again, a rare title in English, but normal in the Latin languages. Nicolas Poussin painted both scenes more than once, and his compositions are described in Blunt, Anthony, "Poussin Studies IV: Two Rediscovered Late Works", The Burlington Magazine, vol. 92, no. 563, 1950, pp. 39–52., JSTOR
  8. ^ Ulmer, 297
  9. ^ Hand p.80; Purtle, 1999, pp 5–6
  10. ^ Schiller, 50 quoted; Wine, 374, note 31
  11. ^ Hall, 213; Wine, 369
  12. ^ Yavneh, 60; Sistine, 51
  13. ^ Hall, 213; Sistine, 52–56
  14. ^ Sistine, 43; Hall, 213–216 lists 13 potential scenes.
  15. ^ Sistine, 40–41, 50–75 analyze the paired cycles.
  16. ^ "WI-ID Subject Tree". iconographic.warburg.sas.ac.uk.
  17. Morgan Library
    , MS M.0724r.
  18. ^ Mann, 169–170
  19. ISBN 1498502938, 9781498502931, google books
    ; for Poussin's hippo-hunt see below
  20. ^ Sistine, 43, 46–47, 51
  21. ^ Yavneh, 51; Robertson, 100
  22. ISBN 9781409411864
    .
  23. ^ Yavneh, 53, 58–59
  24. ^ Bowers, 7–10; both still belong to the London Foundling Hospital; the Hogarth image
  25. ^ "Web Gallery of Art, searchable fine arts image database". www.wga.hu.
  26. ^ Wine, 366, 369
  27. ^ Poussin's various compositions are described in Blunt, Anthony, "Poussin Studies IV: Two Rediscovered Late Works", The Burlington Magazine, vol. 92, no. 563, 1950, pp. 39–52., JSTOR
  28. ^ Wine, 374, note 29
  29. ^ DeWitt
  30. The Art Bulletin, vol. 68, no. 2, 1986, pp. 263–267., JSTOR
  31. ^ "The finding of Moses: Moses brought before Pharoah's daughter by Bonifazio de' Pitati". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au.
  32. ^ Freedberg, 535–536
  33. ISBN 978-0226361093
    .
  34. ^ Willis, note 7, lists 4, plus 3 from his workshop; Yavneh, 51–53; Robertson, 100
  35. ^ Yavneh, 51
  36. ^ Willis, quoted; Robertson, 99–100; The Finding of Moses, after 1740, Probably by Francesco Zugno National Gallery
  37. ^ Brigstocke, 160; Robertson, 100; the Dresden Veronese
  38. ^ Willis
  39. ^ Altogether he painted about 19 works set in Egypt, some 10% of his output
  40. ^ Wine, 369–370
  41. ^ Wine, 369, 374–375, notes 32, 37, 39
  42. ^ Bull, 540–541
  43. ISBN 0892361573, 9780892361571, google books
  44. ISBN 030015514X, 9780300155143, google books
  45. ^ Bull, throughout; Wine, 369
  46. ISBN 9774165993, 9789774165993, google books
  47. ISBN 0567672336, 9780567672339, google books
  48. ^ Langston, 47
  49. ^ Weitzmann, 366–369, 374; Ulmer, 298–304; Mann, 169–170; Langston, 47
  50. ^ Ulmer, 299
  51. ^ Mann, 169–172, 183; Ulner, 297 and throughout. For a sceptical view of the links, see Guttmann, 25–26
  52. ^ Ulmer, 305
  53. ^ Ulner, 311
  54. ^ Ulmer, 305; AGK Images
  55. ^ "Alcestis and Hercules in the Catacomb of via Latina", Beverly Berg, Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Sep., 1994), pp. 219–234, Brill, DOI: 10.2307/1584095, JSTOR
  56. ^ Ulmer, 304–305
  57. ^ Mann, 169–172, 183; Ulmer, 303 has a list in note 26.
  58. ^ Ulmer, 307; f. 9r, British Library, MS add. 27210, image
  59. ^ Mann, 170; Ulmer's list, 303, note 26
  60. ^ Ulner, 322
  61. ^ Ulner, 312–314
  62. ^ Ulmer, 215
  63. ^ DeWitt, fig. 2 and text
  64. Edinburgh University
  65. ^ Natif, 17–18
  66. ^ Natif, 15
  67. ISBN 9780415198110

References

External links
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