The Miracle of the Quails

This large painting was commissioned in 1554 by the Venetian nobleman Domenico Priuli: payments are documented in Jacopo’s Libro de’ conti (Account Book) for a picture described as “l'istoria como vene le cotornice al populo d'Israel” (“the story of how the quails were sent to the people of Israel”). The subject is a rare depiction of the Old Testament Miracle of the Quails, mentioned in Exodus (16:13) and Numbers (11:31). On the left Jacopo portrays the stately figures of Moses and Aaron, heads bowed in conversation, while the rest of the canvas shows an animated and naturalistic depiction of the people of Israel, posed variously to gather the quails miraculously falling from the sky. The background landscape, evocative of the pre-Alps and the Monte Grappa overlooking Bassano (Jacopo’s hometown), is populated with the Israelites’ tents. Jacopo’s Lazarus and the Rich Man (c.1550), a picture of comparable size and format now in The Cleveland Museum of Art, is thought to have been its pendant.