Pharaoh with his Butler and Baker

Around 1515 a wealthy Florentine, Pierfrancesco Borgherini, was fitting out the bedroom for his marriage and wanted the finest painters in the city to decorate it. Pontormo, still in his early twenties, was one of them. This panel was built into the furniture of that room, so it was meant to be seen up close, by candlelight. It tells several moments of the biblical Joseph story at once. The baker is led from prison to his execution on the right, while on the left the butler comes down a curling staircase to serve Pharaoh at his table. The figures are small and quick and crowd every corner. That spiral staircase winding up through the middle is Pontormo's own invention, nothing the Bible describes, put there to carry your eye from one part of the story to the next.