Job Story : Job in the Sickbed
Historical Context
Job in the Sickbed, the first of two panels depicting the Job story attributed to Pseudo Bartolomeo di Giovanni in Berlin's Gemäldegalerie, shows the righteous man of the Old Testament reduced to suffering, covered with sores, his friends gathered around him to debate the cause of his affliction. The Book of Job was one of the most philosophically complex texts in the Hebrew Bible, and its visual representation in late fifteenth-century Florence — the date and attribution place it around 1488 — suggests a patron with humanist interests alongside conventional devotion. The two Job panels may have formed a predella or small private devotional pair.
Technical Analysis
Tempera or oil on panel. The sickbed composition centres Job recumbent while standing or seated figures — friends and visitors — are arranged around him in the manner of a Lamentation over a horizontal figure. The setting's interior suggests a domestic or hospital space appropriate to the subject.
