Cleveland Museum of Art

Abraham and the Angels

Date

1513

Medium

engraving

Culture

Netherlands

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Lucas van Leyden’s subject derives from Genesis 18, when Abraham met three angelic figures as they walked across the plains of Mamre. Abraham invited them to rest under a tree, seen in the left background, where he would later receive news from the Lord that his wife Sarah would bear a son. Van Leyden depicted Abraham kneeling before three standing figures and placed a walking stick in the hand of one of the angels to identify them as travelers. The compact composition and delicate textures, such as the angels’ wings, are typical of the artist's engraving technique. Lucas van Leyden was an innovator in the medium of engraving, inventing new strategies for modeling shadow by cutting curved parallel lines and then adding shorter lines in between, as seen on the angel’s knee.

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