Painting Detail
Elizarus and Rebekah at the WellArtist: Johann Carl Loth
Medium: Painting, Oil on canvas, 123x158.5 cm
Date: 1670
Genre: Christianity, Religious
Source: Museum of the Academy of Arts, Petrograd, 1922
In Genesis we read how Abraham sent out his eldest servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. There the servant meets the beautiful Rebekah at the well. This composition, in its treatment of the figures and colouring, provides clear evidence of just how far Loth's work was influenced by the Italian school. This German artist was forced to leave his native land as a result of the awful destruction resulting from the Thirty Years War, when local artistic traditions seemed to have largely disappeared.
Loth was clearly acquainted with the work of Bernardo Strozzi, the masters of the Baroque, and the use of contrasting light and shade of Caravaggio and his followers. But the most important influence was the art of Venice, where the artist worked for several years and where he died in 1698. Over recent years, four paintings in the Hermitage have been newly attributed to him and there are now eight recognised works, including a "Return of the Prodigal Son" which forms a pair with this painting.