Who painted An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah?

Peter Paul Rubens painted An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah in 1625.

What Bible passage does An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah depict?

An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah depicts the biblical scene from 1 Kings 19:1-9.

Where is An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah located?

An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah is housed at Musée Bonnat, 5, rue Jacques - Laffitte -, Bayonne.

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An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah

An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah by Peter Paul Rubens

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This image portrays a biblical scene taken from 1 Kings 19:1O8, in which the prophet Elijah is visited in the wilderness by an angel who provides him with bread and water, telling Elijah to eat and drink because he has a long journey ahead of him; Elijah later travels to Mount Horeb where, according to Judeo-Christian tradition, Moses had received the Ten Commandments. The biblical scene with Elijah and the Angel which inspired this image can be interpreted as typology, a theory in which Old Testament events are seen as pre-configurations of events which occur in the New Testament and the life of Christ. Here, the Angel’s giving of bread and water to Elijah is regarded as a pre-cursor to Christ’s giving of bread and wine to his disciples at the Last Supper and thus to the clergy’s distribution of the sacrament to Catholics during Holy Communion. In this painting Rubens visually reinforces the importance of the Eucharist in Catholic doctrine and asserts the religious beliefs of the patron.

Details

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Created: 1625 - 1628
Medium: oil on panel
Dimension: 62cm × 72cm
Passage: 1 Kings 19:1-9
Housed at: Musée Bonnat 5, rue Jacques - Laffitte -, Bayonne

Found in: 1 Kings, 1 Kings 19, 17th century, Elijah

1 Kings 19:1-9

1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.

2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I don’t make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time!”

3 When he saw that, he arose, and ran for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree. Then he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough. Now, O Yahweh, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.”

5 He lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat!”

6 He looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on the coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again.

7 Yahweh’s angel came again the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.”

8 He arose, and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, God’s Mountain.

9 He came to a cave there, and camped there; and behold, Yahweh’s word came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1 Kings 19:1-9 · World English Bible

The artist

Peter Paul Rubens

1577 - 1640

Siegen, Germany

Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish artist. He is considered the most influential artist of Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens specialized in making altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.