The Oath of Abraham’s Servant (c. 1650–59): Art, History and Details

The Oath of Abraham’s Servant (c. 1650–59) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Italian, 1609–1664).

The work and its context

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

This work has long been called Journey of a Patriarch in the belief that the artist intended no specific subject. The painting instead depicts a moment in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Abraham secures a pledge from his servant to find a wife for Abraham’s son Isaac. The servant wears a zamt, a goatskin cap common in North Africa in the 1600s, here dyed an unusual shade of blue, a color associated with faith and trust, symbolizing his sacred oath.

Object facts

• Title: The Oath of Abraham’s Servant
• Date: c. 1650–59
• Creator attribution: Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (Italian, 1609–1664)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 71.2 x 94 x 9 cm (28 1/16 x 37 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 56 x 78.4 cm (22 1/16 x 30 7/8 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 16th & 17th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1969.1

A detail from the museum

The musical instrument at the left symbolizes love, foreshadowing the wedding the servant pledges to facilitate.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Durn, Tamara. "The subject of G.B. Castiglione's Journey of a Patriarch identified?" Essay, Case Western Reserve University.
• Richards, Louise S. “A Painting and Two Drawings by Castiglione.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 8 (November 1970): 272–280. Published as: Journey of a Patriarch
• Percy, Ann. Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Master Draughtsman of the Italian Baroque. 1971.

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.