Judah and Tamar

Around 1565 this canvas came out of one of the busiest family workshops in the Veneto, that of Jacopo Bassano, whose sons and assistants turned out biblical scenes by the score. Their trademark was to plant an Old Testament story in the middle of a working farmyard, full of animals, baskets, and country light, so that scripture looked like the rural world their buyers knew. The subject here is a hard one from Genesis: Judah and Tamar, his widowed daughter-in-law, who tricks him into fathering her child after he fails to keep a promise to her. The Bassano manner favours warm earth tones and figures caught in everyday poses. No single hand can be named on a workshop piece like this, which is why it is filed under the workshop rather than the master himself.