Dozens of light-skinned men and women gather around clusters of columns and sandstone-colored buildings that line a crimson-red river to our right in this horizontal painting. The center of the painting is dominated by a structure made up of three rows of three columns each, which hold up a flat-topped roof. A similar structure angles into the distance along the left edge of the painting. The columns of these two structures are carved with bands showing people separated by rings of vertical lines. The capitals are carved with stylized leaves. Just beyond the columns to our left, a blocky, rose-pink structure is carved with more people, seated or standing singly or in pairs. More rectangular, parchment-brown buildings extend into the distance along the water’s edge. The people gathered along the riverbank wear robes and tunics in deep blue or black, bright white, or saturated tones of cobalt blue, ruby red, or shell pink. Standing within the columns of the central structure, a crowned, bearded man wearing an emerald-green robe under a scarlet-red cloak gestures to our right, toward the red river. A woman nearby, wearing lapis blue and also crowned, watches with hands flung up as a person pours red liquid from a bucket. Most of the other people look or gesture toward the river, which winds in deep S-curves from the horizon line, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition, through sage-green fields, to the town. A single, white lightning bolt zigzags down from a white cloud in an otherwise navy-blue sky above.
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Dozens of light-skinned men and women gather around clusters of columns and sandstone-colored buildings that line a crimson-red river to our right in this horizontal painting. The center of the painting is dominated by a structure made up of three rows of three columns each, which hold up a flat-topped roof. A similar structure angles into the distance along the left edge of the painting. The columns of these two structures are carved with bands showing people separated by rings of vertical lines. The capitals are carved with stylized leaves. Just beyond the columns to our left, a blocky, rose-pink structure is carved with more people, seated or standing singly or in pairs. More rectangular, parchment-brown buildings extend into the distance along the water’s edge. The people gathered along the riverbank wear robes and tunics in deep blue or black, bright white, or saturated tones of cobalt blue, ruby red, or shell pink. Standing within the columns of the central structure, a crowned, bearded man wearing an emerald-green robe under a scarlet-red cloak gestures to our right, toward the red river. A woman nearby, wearing lapis blue and also crowned, watches with hands flung up as a person pours red liquid from a bucket. Most of the other people look or gesture toward the river, which winds in deep S-curves from the horizon line, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the composition, through sage-green fields, to the town. A single, white lightning bolt zigzags down from a white cloud in an otherwise navy-blue sky above.

National Gallery of Art · Painting

"He Turned Their Waters into Blood"

Erastus Salisbury Field

Date
c. 1865/1880
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 76.8 x 102.9 cm (30 1/4 x 40 1/2 in.) framed: 95.2 x 121.9 x 6.3 cm (37 1/2 x 48 x 2 1/2 in.)
Classification
Painting
Accession number
1964.23.3
Credit line
Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch
Time span
1851 to 1875
Department
CAB

Subjects and terms

  • painted surface
  • American
  • Old Testament
  • religious
  • Moses
  • American Naive Paintings
  • Naive
Provenance

Descended in the Cooley family, Sunderland, Massachusetts, to Mrs. Esther Cooley Page.[1] (Robert Schuyler Tompkins, Sheffield, Massachusetts,) by whom sold in 1949 to Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch; gift to NGA, 1964. [1] The Cooleys were friends and neighbors of the artist when he lived in Plumtrees, Massachusetts. His studio was behind their home.

NGA object ID 50260. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.