Meeting of Jacob and Rachel (No. 15) is a Marc Chagall etching from the 1958 Bible Suite, published by Tériade. Commissioned by Ambroise Vollard in the 1930s and finished in the 1950s, the Bible series includes 105 etchings in black-and-white, while some impressions, including this particular piece, feature later hand-coloring. In these pieces, Chagall blends Old Testament figures with expressive, dreamlike, and figurative elements.
This piece is not a standard monochrome impression from the book edition of 275. This comes from the elite edition of 100 suites printed on grand velin d’Arches paper, which were hand-colored by Marc Chagall himself using watercolor and gouache, and individually hand-initialed “M.Ch.” in pencil.
In this etching, Chagall captures the intimacy of the moment near the flock and the open well where, much like his deep affection for his wife, Bella, he portrays Jacob smitten with love at first sight.
Curator Jean Bloch Rosensaft curated the 1987 exhibition titled Chagall and the Bible at The Jewish Museum in New York. The exhibition highlighted how Chagall utilized his deeply personal and cultural connection to Judaism to depict stories from the Hebrew Bible.
An excerpt from the exhibition catalog, Chagall and the Bible by Jean Bloch Rosensaft (The Jewish Museum, 1987), is quoted below.
* The exhibition catalog is included if all three Chagall – Bible pieces are purchased together.
Since my early youth
I have been fascinated by the Bible.
It has always seemed to me
and it seems to me still
that it is the greatest source
of poetry, of all time.
Since then I have sought
this reflection in life and in art.
The Bible is like an echo
of nature and this secret
I have tried to transmit.
-Marc Chagall
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).
Loc: G.S.B. pp95b