Laban Searching for His Stolen Gods (1753): Art, History and Details

Laban Searching for His Stolen Gods (1753) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Augustin de Saint-Aubin (French, 1736–1807).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This painting is a sketch for a special competition in 1753 held by the Royal Academy in Paris. After the Grand Prix de Rome, the academy's top student prize, an unexpected vacancy in the school's branch in Rome required the academy to hold another contest. Saint-Aubin's oil sketch was well received and he won first place among three finalists. However, his final canvas, now in the Louvre, failed to garner him this distinguished award. Saint-Aubin eventually abandoned his goal of becoming a member of the Royal Academy and joined the less-prestigious Academy of St. Luke. The subject of Saint-Aubin's sketch, selected by the academy, comes from the Old Testament book of Genesis (31:33–35). After toiling for Laban for 14 years, Jacob fled with his wife, Rachel, who was also Laban's daughter. Unbeknownst to Jacob, Rachel had stolen her father's idols before their departure to secure her right to her first born. Laban tracks down Jacob and Rachel and accuses them of carrying off his idols. Jacob is still unaware of Rachel's previous actions, and she has hidden the gods under a camel saddle on which she sits.

Object facts

• Title: Laban Searching for His Stolen Gods
• Date: 1753
• Creator attribution: Augustin de Saint-Aubin (French, 1736–1807)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 62 x 72 x 7.5 cm (24 7/16 x 28 3/8 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 45.6 x 57.3 cm (17 15/16 x 22 9/16 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1965.548

Collection credit

Gift of Ruth and Sherman E. Lee in memory of their parents, George B. and Inez W. Ward, and Emery and Adelia Lee

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Golden Anniversary Acquisition,” 1966, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Stechow, Wolfgang. “Bartolomé Estéban Murillo: Laban Searching for His Stolen Household Gods in Rachel’s Tent.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 10 (December 1966): 367–377.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.