This blue painting, by the American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), re-creates a storied scene from the early life of Moses, the famous Hebrew prophet and leader featured in the biblical Book of Exodus. As the story goes, Moses was born at a time when the pharaoh of Egypt was ordering all male Hebrew newborn children in his realm to be put to death. Instead of following this order, Moses’ family opted to leave the child by the bank of the Nile, releasing him into the care of fate and nature. Yet, they also increased Moses’ odds of survival by timing the child’s abandonment to coincide with the known bathing schedule of the pharaoh’s sympathetic daughter. As described in the Book of Exodus:
“When she [Moses’ mother] could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him. The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. ‘This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,’ she said.” (Exodus 2: 3-6, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE) translation).
It is this scene of the pharaoh’s daughter discovering Moses in the water that Henry Ossawa Tanner re-creates in his painting. Yet, the tale did not end there, for Moses’ sister boldly injected herself into the scene to ensure that her family retained some connection to the baby’s upbringing. The author of the Book of Exodus continued:
“Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, ‘Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?’ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Yes.’ So the girl went and called the child’s mother. Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.’ So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses, ‘because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’” (Exodus 2: 7-10, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE) translation).
Henry Tanner’s choice of a blue color palette set his painting apart from other notable artworks of the same scene. Similar “Finding of Moses” paintings by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) and Sébastien Bourdon (c. 1616-1671), for instance, depicted daytime scenes of color, vibrance, and realistic figures, whereas Tanner’s more abstract subjects, bathed in blue hues, seem to find Moses during a moon-lit night. Given the clandestine nature of Moses’ abandonment, and the pain and gloom of surrendering one’s own child into the care of a stranger, the shades of blue are a fitting touch by the artist.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Sources:
- The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version With The Apocrypha (Fifth Edition, Fully Revised), edited by Michael D. Coogan and associates. Oxford University Press, 2018.
- The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 1993.
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%202&version=NRSVUE
- https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/moses-bullrushes-23668
