Ivory Triptych Rebecca And Eliezer, 18th Century

Small ivory triptych made in the mid-18th century representing a subject taken from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. It is about the meeting of Eliezer and Rebekah at the well of Nahor. Abraham gave a mission to his old steward, Eliezer, to go and choose a wife in Mesopotamia for his son Isaac. Arriving near a well with his ten camels, he meets, among the girls coming to draw water, young Rebecca who gives him water for himself and for his camels. Eliezer seeing this as a divine sign, offers Rebecca a golden ring and two bracelets and recognizes her as Isaac's wife. Our artist represents this scene by seven young girls and three men watering the camels, arranged around the two protagonists, in a naturalistic landscape. Other girls, further away, are hidden by their companions closer to the viewer. The faces of Rébecca and her companions, with varied expressions, allow us to analyze the reactions provoked by the election: curiosity, emotion or surprise. An element that catches the eye is the sphere located on the truncated column, sculpted in high relief. It is probably the symbol of Fortune, a Roman goddess who distributes her benefits at random and one of whose main attributes is the globe. The well, the place of choice for mystical weddings, locus fortunae, is marked by this emblem, which also appears in the painting Eliézer and Rébecca (1648) by Nicolas Poussin kept at the Louvre museum.