Isaac blesses Jacob

Girolamo da Treviso the Younger was a Venetian-trained painter who eventually settled in England in the service of Henry VIII, where he died at the siege of Boulogne in 1544. His Isaac Blesses Jacob, painted before his departure for England, reflects the narrative painting tradition of the Venetian High Renaissance — large-scale figure compositions treating Old Testament subjects with theatrical gesture and rich colouration. The subject, from Genesis 27, where Jacob deceives his blind father Isaac into granting him Esau's blessing, was popular in Italian Renaissance painting for its dramatic possibilities.

Girolamo deploys a warm Venetian palette with rich reds and golds, handling the figures with the broad, confident brushwork of the Venetian High Renaissance. The elderly Isaac is rendered with particular attention to physiognomic detail — the blindness and age registering through careful description of skin and closed eyes. Spatial construction follows the shallow-stage format typical of North Italian narrative painting.