Artwork
Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness (Genesis 21.17)
Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness (Genesis 21.17) is an oil painting by Pier Francesco Mola. It dates from 1649 and is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
About this work
Overview
Pier Francesco Mola’s oil on canvas, dated around 1649, portrays the biblical episode of Hagar and her son Ishmael in the desert. The work is part of the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and measures roughly a modest size typical of mid‑seventeenth‑century devotional paintings.
Subject & Meaning
The composition shows Hagar seated on a crag, her yellow blouse and red skirt contrasting with the barren surroundings, while the infant Ishmael lies nearby in a red garment. An angel with expansive wings hovers above, extending a hand toward the child, suggesting divine intervention and protection in the moment of abandonment described in Genesis.
Technique & Style
Mola employs a pronounced chiaroscuro, juxtaposing bright, sunlit figures against a deep, shadowy landscape to model volume and heighten emotional tension. The luminous flesh tones and the soft rendering of the angel’s wings are set off by the dark, rocky horizon, a hallmark of the artist’s Baroque sensibility.
History & Provenance
Created circa 1649, the painting entered the Victoria and Albert Museum’s holdings through acquisition in the early twentieth century, though earlier ownership records are sparse. Its presence in the museum’s European paintings department reflects the institution’s effort to represent Italian Baroque narrative art.
Artist & collection
Artist
Pier Francesco Mola, called Il Ticinese was an Italian painter of the High Baroque, mainly active around Rome.
