The angel appears to Hagar in the desert / Hagar and Ismael in the Desert of Bersheeba

Hagar and Ishmael in the Desert of Beersheba (c. 1585), in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, depicts the desperate moment from Genesis when Abraham's concubine Hagar, expelled with her son Ishmael into the wilderness, sees the boy dying of thirst before an angel reveals a life-saving well. Veronese invests this story of maternal anguish and divine rescue with genuine emotional power, presenting Hagar's distress and the angel's intervention with compelling dramatic force. The subject resonated with Counter-Reformation audiences as an illustration of God's providential care for the abandoned and desperate. This late work exemplifies Veronese's increasingly emotional approach to biblical narrative in his final years.

The composition contrasts the distressed earthly figures with the luminous angelic visitor. Veronese's warm palette and atmospheric landscape setting create a scene of divine consolation.