Rebekah and Abraham's Servant

Around 1705 this canvas travelled north from Naples to Venice, painted by Francesco Solimena for the Baglioni, a wealthy family who ran one of the city's busy presses and published liturgical books. The story comes from Genesis. Abraham sends his old servant far from home to find a bride for his son Isaac, and the servant, unsure how he will know her, stops at a well and waits. Rebekah arrives, draws water, and offers to fill the trough for his thirsty camels as well, the small act of kindness that tells him she is the one. Solimena gives the meeting a stately calm, the figures grouped like actors caught mid-gesture. It hung for two centuries in Baglioni palaces, one of a matched pair, until the Italian State bought it in the 1920s.