Abel

In Genesis, Abel is the shepherd son of Adam and Eve, the one who brought God the firstborn of his flock and was killed by his jealous brother Cain. Bellanger leaves Cain out. There is no weapon, only the young man lying on a sheepskin with his arms flung wide, in an empty, stony upland under a sky that has turned green at the horizon. The fleece comes from his own trade as a keeper of sheep, and a trace of blood marks it beside his head. He signed the canvas with two years, 1874 and 1875, and sent it to the Salon of 1875, where the state bought it for the Musée du Luxembourg. From 1926 it spent more than 40 years on loan to the Paris Court of Appeal, and it came back to the Louvre in 1970.