The Prophetess Deborah Ordering Barak to Take Arms against Sisera

The Prophetess Deborah Ordering Barak to Take Arms against Sisera

Francesco Solimena

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Solimena, the leading painter of his generation from Naples, became famous throughout Europe for his versatility as a painter of religious and mythological compositions on a monumental scale and for his portraits. In this free, rapidly drawn sketch, he represented the prophetess Deborah, seated under a palm tree, ordering Barak to take arms against Sisera (Judges 4: 5–7). The drawing is a study for Solimena’s Deborah and Barak, painted in Naples around 1728-33, and now in the Harrach’sche collection of Schloss Rohrau, Vienna.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Prophetess Deborah Ordering Barak to Take Arms against SiseraThe Prophetess Deborah Ordering Barak to Take Arms against SiseraThe Prophetess Deborah Ordering Barak to Take Arms against SiseraThe Prophetess Deborah Ordering Barak to Take Arms against SiseraThe Prophetess Deborah Ordering Barak to Take Arms against Sisera

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.