The New Murrey and Blue blog

Dear Sparky,

Well now you have my imagination working overtime. I have no idea how we track where this particular illumination came from so perhaps we have clues embedded in the image itself? It may be nothing more than a fable, Arthurian, for example. Perhaps it is Lancelot/ Merlin/ Arthur (?) avoiding the temptress Morgan le Fay?

BUT looking at it strictly as an image, it appears to me to be an ‘outdoor’ scene, with a sky depicted in a heaven of blue with gold stars (in architecture this would be the ‘dome of heaven’ effect, you can see it at the tiny reliquary Chapel of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris), the luxurious tent would appear to be royal or at least fit for a king, the heavy red drapes pulled aside to reveal (to us) a shocking incident – the next clue is that this wanton woman is grabbing the young man’s robe/cloak/ shirt.

And that is when I thought, aha! It has to be Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, a very famous “scene” for artists – from Genesis (39:1-20) wherein poor honest chaste Joseph repeatedly eludes the advances of the wife of an officer in Pharoah’s service. When she manages to catch him alone in the house, all the men are out, she grabs him by his garment, which she secures in Genesis, to later accuse him of assaulting her. Artists love this story of Joseph, probably the best is from Rembrandt (I’m biased), google Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife and hit “images,” the manuscript image here is crude, true, but there is enough info to convey a narrative, eh?

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