Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, 'Rebekah and Eliezer at the Well', 1661

Van den Eeckhout’s painting tells an Old Testament story of kindness, hospitality and trust towards travellers. In 1991, it was presented to the National Gallery by Mr Herman Shickman in gratitude to the British people who showed hospitality to his mother, a refugee from Germany in the Second World War.

In the seventeenth century, the people of the Dutch Republic paid great attention to the Old Testament, seeing a link between the Jews, who had overcome great hardship to gain freedom, and themselves, in their recently won independence from Spanish rule. Pictures portraying scenes from the Old Testament were popular, and biblical characters seen as real. This is why artists such as Rembrandt and his pupil van den Eeckhout often used people from their neighbourhood as models and painted them ‘warts and all’ in their pursuit of realism.

The figure wearing the enormous turban is Eliezer, chief servant of Abraham, the first of the Jewish patriarchs. Abraham wanted a wife for his son, Isaac, and sent Eliezer to find a bride in a neighbouring country. Eliezer prayed for help in finding her, and God told him to stop at a well to ask for water for himself and his camels. Whichever young woman offered it first would be chosen. The painting shows the moment when, without his asking, Rebekah shyly offers Eliezer a drink. She holds the heavy jug in front of her, perhaps a little defensively, but the hand Eliezer holds out to her is gentle and reassuring. Rebekah consents to return with him to become Isaac’s wife, and lives, so the Bible tells, happily ever after.

Unlike the Bible story, van den Eeckhout seems to point to a difference in status and circumstances between the two main characters by dividing the painting in two. Although a traveller and a stranger – his camel nods a weary head behind him – Eliezer is dressed in a richly decorated robe and his retinue is impressive. Rebekah wears pearl earrings and white linen under her shawl but she is plainly dressed compared with the old man.

Eliezer’s servants are all male. Each is given a status and a character, from the camel driver looking round towards the man with the large basket, to the servant in yellow livery. Rebekah has no servants. There are women around her but too far away to give them a real identity or a relationship with her. They keep a curious, perhaps jealous, eye on events while carrying on their work –- hauling a heavy bucket, pulling on an authentic-looking rope and pulley, minding the sheep.

Van den Eeckhout paints the landscape with the warm browns, yellows and mossy green often favoured by Rembrandt, but it too is divided. Behind Eliezer, softly rolling hills stretch away to a distant knoll where there are silhouettes of trees and camels. Behind Rebekah, the towering mountain is rough, bleak and deserted. Yet their two worlds meet. The tawny brown of the mountain echoed in Eliezer’s robe links them, as does the hand stretched out with such sensitivity towards the naïve young girl facing an enormous step that will change her life.