The Finding of Moses

Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)

1560s? · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

To save baby Moses after the Egyptian pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys be thrown into the Nile, his mother placed him in a basket on the river and hoped for his salvation. Tintoretto’s composition focuses on two extraordinary coincidences in this biblical narrative: that the pharaoh’s daughter found and rescued Moses, and that the nurse she recruited to care for him was his own mother. This story of love and charity was popular in Venice, possibly because the theme of rising from the waters appealed to residents of the Floating City. Tintoretto rendered the work in his famously fast style, with certain forms and figures suggested by just a few lines of color. Among these are the hunting scenes in the background, whose meaning remains mysterious.

Artist

Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)

Date

1560s?

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Gwynne Andrews Fund, 1939