The Death of Rachel

Giambettino Cignaroli finished this large canvas in 1769, in the last full year of his life; he died in Verona the following December, in his early sixties. The subject comes from the Book of Genesis. On the road near Bethlehem, Rachel dies giving birth to her second son, whom she names with her dying breath while those around her lift the newborn. Cignaroli was Verona's most respected painter, and by this date his calm, correct manner had already cooled toward the sober lines of Neoclassicism. What ties the picture to this room is where it was made to hang. It was painted for the Scuola Grande della Carità, the Venetian confraternity whose building the Gallerie dell'Accademia later took over, so the canvas now hangs inside the very walls it was ordered for.