Rebecca Led by the Servant of Abraham

Rebecca Led by the Servant of Abraham — based on Genesis 24, in which Abraham's servant Eliezer was sent to find a wife for Isaac and returned with Rebecca — is another of Castiglione's caravan compositions from around 1650, held at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham. The Barber, founded in 1932 with an endowment specifically for acquiring old masters rather than contemporary work, built a collection of exceptional quality including this Castiglione as one of its Italian Baroque highlights. The subject offered Castiglione the same attractions as the Abraham and Rachel subjects: a journey scene combining pastoral landscape, animals, and human drama within a biblical narrative of providential marriage. Rebecca's moment of leaving her family for an unknown destination carries a poignant human drama beneath its theological significance.

The figure of Rebecca, elegantly dressed as a prosperous young woman of the ancient Near East as Castiglione imagined it, anchors the composition amid the livestock and servants of the caravan. The servant Eliezer, Castiglione's interpretation of Abraham's representative, leads her with a combination of official duty and personal decorum. Warm afternoon light suggests the journey's beginning, full of forward expectation.