After Nicolas Poussin, Eliezer and Rebecca at the Well, Oil on Canvas, Late 18th to Early 19th Century, Unframed

Twenty figures and not one of them looks at the viewer. Every head is turned toward the centre or away from it, and the two who matter stand apart, hands raised, in the only gap in the crowd.

Oil on canvas, unlined, 14 1/2 x 19 inches (37 x 48 cm), unframed. Unsigned. French, late eighteenth to early nineteenth century, after Nicolas Poussin.

Eliezer stands at the centre in a turban and a yellow robe, both hands open toward Rebecca, who holds a jewel against her breast. Around them ten women carry water jars, some seated on the ground at the left, others standing in a line at the right beside the well. A colonnade and a stone sphere close the composition on the right, a town in warm stone rises behind on the left, and a range of blue hills runs across the distance. The drapery is worked in flat saturated colour, blue, green, rose and orange, each figure given one dominant note.

The canvas has never been relined and sits on its original keyed stretcher. An old restoration at the upper right, losses to the red drapery at the centre and along the upper and lower edges, an overall craquelure and a yellowed varnish. Sold unframed.