ARARPI0270126
Antique Painting Religious Subject Moses XVII-XVIII Century
Oil on canvas. Set in a classic landscape, rich in vegetation, the scene represents the biblical episode from the book of Genesis which tells how the people of Israel, who are crossing the Sinai desert to reach the Promised Land, find themselves without water: Moses invokes God's help and performs the miracle of making water spring from a rock. In the scene, the people of Israel rejoice and celebrate the miracle, rushing to bathe and quench their thirst in the pool of water evoked by Moses, who can be glimpsed standing to the left of the dry trunk in the foreground, a symbol of the aridity of the land. The branches of the trees moved by a strong wind and the sky full of dark clouds that are beginning to tear, evoke the presence of God. The multiple figures, rendered with accurate details, create movement and action. This painting has already been presented at the Lempertz auction with an attribution to Giovanni Ghisolfi (1623 -1683), an artist who developed a perfect combination between past and modernity, thanks to a deep interest in classicism, rendered however with effective perspective precision in the landscape and great precision of details in the figures. Restored and relined, the painting is presented in a late 19th century gilded frame.