1554, Jacopo Bassano, The Miracle of the Quails -- Getty Museum (Los Angeles)
From the museum label: In an episode rarely depicted in art, the biblical books of Exodus (16:13) and Numbers (11:31) describe God miraculously providing quails to the Israelites starving in the wilderness. In his rendition of the subject, Bassano relegated Israelite high priests Aaron and Moses, engaged in close dialogue, to the far-left middle ground of the picture, filling the majority of the canvas with a lively portrayal of the people of Israel busily gathering the birds fallen from the sky. Striking in its monumental scale, the picture perfectly embodies the genre to which Bassano owed his fame: biblical themes with a pastoral character, where realistic details from everyday life are incorporated into complex and ambitious compositions.
1554, Jacopo Bassano, The Miracle of the Quails -- Getty Museum (Los Angeles)
From the museum label: In an episode rarely depicted in art, the biblical books of Exodus (16:13) and Numbers (11:31) describe God miraculously providing quails to the Israelites starving in the wilderness. In his rendition of the subject, Bassano relegated Israelite high priests Aaron and Moses, engaged in close dialogue, to the far-left middle ground of the picture, filling the majority of the canvas with a lively portrayal of the people of Israel busily gathering the birds fallen from the sky. Striking in its monumental scale, the picture perfectly embodies the genre to which Bassano owed his fame: biblical themes with a pastoral character, where realistic details from everyday life are incorporated into complex and ambitious compositions.