Publications: Chagall and the Bible, Rosensaft, 1987.

15.  MEETING OF JACOB AND RACHEL

He said, “It is still broad daylight, too early to round up the animals; water the flock and take them to pasture.” But they said, “We cannot, until all the flocks are rounded up; then the stone is rolled off the mouth of the well, and we water the sheep.”

While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s flock; for she was a shepherdess. And when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban, and the flock of his uncle Laban, Jacob went up and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well, and watered the flock of his uncle Laban.
Genesis, XXIX, 7-10

The depiction of Jacob and Rachel’s first encounter is imbued with Chagall’s unique romanticism. Jacob recognizes and embraces the beautiful daughter of his uncle Laban, while she is not yet quite aware of his identity. Jacob is obviously smitten by love at first sight, just as Chagall recalls having fallen in love with Bella. While a flock of young sheep cavort around the open well, the sky is filled with sharp broken lines that express Jacob’s high-keyed emotion. Chagall returns to this biblical love story during the last years of his life in his decoration of the Harpsichord (1980) for the Museum of the Biblical Message-Marc Chagall in Nice and in the late work Peasants by the Well (1981).

Chagall and the Bible, pg. 132 (excerpt attached at link as pdf).