Josephs Rock

Velazquez painted this in 1630 during his first trip to Rome, sent by the Spanish king to study the great Italians up close, and you can see him testing what he had learned. The story is from Genesis: Joseph's jealous brothers have sold him into slavery, then dipped his coat in goat's blood and carried it back to fool their father Jacob into thinking a wild animal killed him. Velazquez freezes the moment of the lie, Jacob recoiling in grief while the brothers press the bloody garment on him, and even the family dog barks at the deception. He worked out the foreshortened bodies and the theatrical space in ways his earlier Seville pictures never attempted. He brought it home to Spain, and it eventually went to the royal monastery of the Escorial, where it hangs now.