Jacob bendiciendo a los hijos de José

The old blind man is Jacob, and he has just crossed his arms. Joseph, at the right, is trying to correct him, because the stronger right-hand blessing is landing on the younger grandson instead of the elder. Guercino painted this scene around 1620 for a cardinal at Ferrara, pushing the figures close to us in hard light and deep shadow in a way that still remembers Caravaggio. Velázquez saw it on his Italian travels in 1629. Centuries later the scholar Denis Mahon found it in Paris and bought it in 1934 for £120, roughly the cost of a small car then, and it later came to the National Gallery of Ireland.