The Prophet Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath

The story comes from the First Book of Kings. During a drought the prophet Elijah is sent to the town of Zarephath, near Sidon, and asks a widow gathering sticks at the gate for water and a piece of bread. She has only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug, enough for one last meal for herself and her son. Elijah tells her to bake for him first and promises that the flour and the oil will not run out until the rain returns, and they do not. Strozzi painted the scene around 1640 to 1644, in the last years of his life, on a canvas wider than it is tall, with the widow at her jar, her boy beside her and the prophet leaning on his staff. The picture is recorded in the imperial gallery in Vienna by 1733.