Moïse sauvé des eaux

Veronese ran one of the busiest workshops in Venice, and some subjects were popular enough that he painted them again and again. The finding of the baby Moses in the reeds was one of them. At least eight versions came out of his shop, and this small one, barely half a metre high, is reckoned the finest of them all. The story is ancient and Egyptian. Everything Veronese put around it is Venice around 1580. Pharaoh's daughter and her attendants wear the shimmering silks and pearls of wealthy Venetian women of his own day, posed against a distant bridge and a cool northern-looking landscape. Cabinet pictures like this were made small on purpose, meant to be held close and passed around a private room rather than hung high on a church wall.