Eliezer and Rebecca at the Well
- Catalog
- WD-D07
- Artist
- Willem Drost
- Year
- c. 1650–55
- Medium
- Brown ink, brown wash and white opaque watercolor on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- 17 × 23.6 cm
- Location
- Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
Description
A pen and brown ink drawing attributed to Drost, depicting the biblical scene from Genesis 24 where Abraham's servant Eliezer meets Rebecca at the well. Eliezer rests the pitcher on his thigh and exchanges glances with Rebecca, who wears a bern — a flat broad-brimmed hat worn by Roma women.
Analysis
Attributed to Drost by the Harvard Art Museums (1999.136, Maida and George Abrams Collection), this drawing's pen work strongly resembles that of Drost's confirmed Ruth and Naomi (Kunsthalle Bremen), while the landscape handling recalls his Noli me Tangere drawing. The Harvard catalog entry by William W. Robinson notes that Drost adapted a figure group from a Rembrandt school painting of the same subject and based his figure of Eliezer on a drawing attributed to Ferdinand Bol (Albertina, Vienna). Drost improves upon his models by eliminating extraneous details and concentrating on the solemn communication between the two protagonists. The watermark — a Paschal Lamb — is identical to that in an impression of Rembrandt's 1655 etching Pieter Haringh. Provenance traces through Adolph von Beckerath, Count Gregori Stroganoff, Dr. C. Gaa, and Ernst Jürgen Otto before entering the Abrams Collection in 1989.