Potiphar's Wife Acuses Joseph
1512
Medium
Engraving; first state
Dimensions
sheet: 4 3/4 x 6 5/16 in. (12.1 x 16 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926
Accession Number
26.72.11
Tags
Art Historical Context
Lucas van Leyden’s 1512 engraving “Potiphar’s Wife Accuses Joseph” captures a dramatic moment from the biblical story in Genesis. The young Joseph stands accused by his master’s wife after rejecting her advances, while Potiphar listens with evident distress. Created when the artist was only about eighteen, the small print demonstrates his remarkable skill in conveying complex human emotion and narrative tension within a compact format. As one of the leading printmakers of the Northern Renaissance, Lucas van Leyden helped elevate engraving from a craft into a sophisticated art form. His detail...
About the Artist
Lucas van Leyden · 1484–1533
Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533) was a Dutch painter and printmaker who stands among the greatest engravers of the Northern Renaissance. Born in Leiden as either Lucas Hugensz or Lucas Jacobsz, he lived and worked primarily in his native city, achieving international renown that rivaled the German master Albrecht Dürer. Lucas van Leyden revolutionized Netherlandish printmaking and was among the first...