Isaac Meeting Rebecca

Isaac Meeting Rebecca, circa 1640 and now in the Hermitage, depicts the tender Genesis narrative of the young Isaac spotting Rebekah and immediately taking her as his wife, fulfilling the prophecy Abraham's servant delivered. Castiglione places the emotional moment within his characteristic landscape of animals, attendants, and travel gear, so that the human encounter becomes one element within a larger pageant of Baroque abundance. By 1640 the artist had absorbed Roman influences — particularly through contact with Nicolas Poussin's circle — and this painting shows a more classicising landscape than the Bavarian series. The Hermitage's example entered the imperial collection through the ambitious purchasing campaigns of the eighteenth century that made St. Petersburg a repository of Italian Baroque painting.

The meeting of Isaac and Rebecca is staged in the middle ground, allowing the eye to move from a richly detailed animal foreground toward the human narrative centre. Light falls from the left in warm afternoon tones, picking out the figures against a cooler, shadowed background of trees and sky.