The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

The Oath of Abraham’s Servant

c. 1650–59

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione

(Italian, 1609–1664)
Italy, 17th century
oil on canvas
Framed: 71.2 x 94 x 9 cm (28 1/16 x 37 x 3 9/16 in.); Unframed: 56 x 78.4 cm (22 1/16 x 30 7/8 in.)
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 1969.1
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The musical instrument at the left symbolizes love, foreshadowing the wedding the servant pledges to facilitate.

Description

This work has long been called Journey of a Patriarch in the belief that the artist intended no specific subject. The painting instead depicts a moment in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Abraham secures a pledge from his servant to find a wife for Abraham’s son Isaac. The servant wears a zamt, a goatskin cap common in North Africa in the 1600s, here dyed an unusual shade of blue, a color associated with faith and trust, symbolizing his sacred oath.
  • 1969
    [Pinakos, New York], sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
  • Durn, Tamara. "The subject of G.B. Castiglione's Journey of a Patriarch identified?" Essay, Case Western Reserve University.
    Richards, Louise S. “A Painting and Two Drawings by Castiglione.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 8 (November 1970): 272–280.
    Published as: Journey of a Patriarch Mentioned and reproduced: p. 272-276, figs. 1, 2 www.jstor.org
    Percy, Ann. Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Master Draughtsman of the Italian Baroque. 1971. 40
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Louise d' Argencourt, and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Vol. III: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. 326-327
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 141 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Mentioned: p. 326; Reproduced: p. 327
    Schloder, John E. Baroque Imagery. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1984. 15, 81
    Goldfarb, Hilliard T. “Boucher’s ‘Pastoral Scene with Family at Rest’ and the Image of the Pastoral in Eighteenth-Century France.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71, no. 3 (March 1984): 82–89.
    Published as: Journey of a Patriarch Mentioned and reproduced: p. 84-85, fig. 7 www.jstor.org
    Dillon, Gianvittorio. Il Grechetto: il genio di Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. Genova: Sagep, 1990. 133
    Duffin, Ross. RIdIM/RCMI Inventory of Music Iconography. Vol. 8. New York: Research Center for Musical Iconography, 1991. no. 176, pp. 9, 37
    Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. 31
    Orlando, Anna, Francesco Rotatori, and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. Gio. Benedetto Castiglione genovese: il Grechetto a Roma : committenza e opere. Genova : Sagep editori, 2022. Reproduced: p. 220, no. 32
  • Year in Review: 1969. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 27-February 22, 1970).
  • {{cite web|title=The Oath of Abraham’s Servant|url=false|author=Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione|year=c. 1650–59|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1969.1