Rebecca at the Well

Genesis tells the errand briefly. Abraham sends his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac, the servant waits by a well, and the girl who waters his camels is the one. Piazzetta painted it in Venice in the late 1730s, for a private house rather than a church, and what comes out is a courtship.

Rebecca stands in the middle in a pale dress with a wide neckline and short sleeves, a metal jar on her arm, while the old servant holds out the jewellery that seals the promise. Two girls at the right are smiling and talking it over. Venetian painters of these years were often asked for exactly this, a biblical name attached to a scene of country life that a patrician could hang at eye level.

The picture belonged to the Contarini, one of the old Venetian families, and came to Milan in 1916 in the will of the publisher Emilio Treves. Of the ten camels in the story, one muzzle made it into the left edge.