Isaac Blessing Jacob

The story is from Genesis. Isaac, old and blind, means to give his blessing to his elder son Esau, a hunter whose arms are rough with hair. His wife Rebecca wants it for the younger son, Jacob. She cooks the dish Isaac asked for, dresses Jacob in his brother's clothes and covers his hands and neck with goatskin, and when the old man reaches out to touch him he feels Esau and blesses Jacob. The voice is Jacob's voice, he says, but the hands are the hands of Esau.

Here Isaac lies in bed while Rebecca guides Jacob's hands towards him. The canvas is more than a metre wide. The museum gives it to Luca Giordano with the word attributed, and gives it no date. It came to Boston in 1923 with the bequest of Helen O. Bigelow, and the only photograph of it available here is black and white.