Joseph receiving Pharaoh's Ring

The story comes from Genesis. A Hebrew prisoner reads Pharaoh's dreams and, in a single morning, is pulled from his cell to become the most powerful man in Egypt after the king. Tiepolo catches the instant the ring changes hands, the seal of office passing to Joseph. He painted it in Venice around 1733 and dressed this ancient Egyptian court in the silks and marble of his own city's past, reaching back about 150 years to Paolo Veronese, the great master of Venice's golden age. The cool bright colour and the crowded, stagelike setting come straight from him. Tiepolo was still in his thirties, decades before the ceilings that would carry his name across Europe. The canvas now hangs at Dulwich in south London, part of the founding bequest that opened Britain's first purpose-built public picture gallery in 1817.