Creative Commons License
Creative Commons License
The Sacrifice of Isaac
(Renaissance Europe )
Vasari may have painted this biblical scene as well as three others (Walters 37.1177, 37.1176, 37.1704) in brown monochrome as a study for related compositions in a series of 18 larger, multicolor panels representing the correspondences between the Old and New Testaments made in 1545-1546 for the sacristy of the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples. Vasari's skill with the pen comes out in the preliminary drawings, visible in The Fall of Manna, to which he added layers of paint with his brush and fingers.
These particular subjects relate to the establishment of the Holy Eucharist (Communion), when the priest at the altar symbolically re-enacts the sacrifice of Christ. This episode from Genesis foreshadows Christ's sacrifice or the role of bread as sustenance and as an offering. In The Sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham is ordered by God to sacrifice his son Isaac and is then prevented from doing so by an angel.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 235, as Polidoro da Carabaggio]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Geographies
Italy, Florence (Place of Origin)
Measurements
Painted surface H: 12 13/16 x W: 31 5/8 x D excluding cradle: 5/16 in. (32.5 x 80.3 x 0.8 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902
Location in Museum
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.1705
