Joseph and Asenath

The Master of Affligem painted this scene of Joseph and Asenath as part of a Joseph cycle now in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin. The marriage of the Hebrew patriarch to the Egyptian woman Asenath was a subject of growing interest in the early sixteenth century, interpreted as a prefiguration of the union between Christ and his Church. The oil medium allowed for rich tonal transitions and glazed layers of color that created luminous depth impossible with the older tempera technique. Such devotional panels served both liturgical contexts in churches and chapels and private devotional use in the homes of wealthy families who maintained personal altars and oratories.

The narrative panel features characteristic Brussels workshop attention to architectural detail and contemporary costume, translating the Old Testament story into a fifteenth-century Burgundian visual vocabulary.