The Philistines filling the wells (Les philistins comblant les puits qu'avait fait creuser Abraham)

Etching with a Biblical scene of the Genesis, illustrating the passage in which the Philistines fill Isaac's wells with earth in envy. The composition, as is common in many of Delaune's Biblical scenes, illustrates simultaneously two distinct episodes from history: on the front, three Philistines are illustrated throwing soil to the wells with their shovels, while others destroy the buildings around them where the animals stay; on the backrgound, to the right, Isaac and his troops are shown fleeing, after Abimelek expells him for having become too powerful for the tribe. This composition is certainly inspired, although reversed, on one of the illustrations created by Bernard Salomon for Claude Paradin's "Quadrins historiques de la Bible." The inscription under the illustration contains the verse, in Latin, narrating the scene: "For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth" (Genesis 26:15).



The scene is part of a set of 36 prints illustrating the history of the Genesis, all with an inscription in Latin under the picture, summarizing the passage of the Bible that is subject of the picture. The succession of episodes in this set is somewhat chaotic, as only three plates illustrate the history of Creation, while six are consecrated to the history of Adam and Eve, and with striking breaks in the narration. The existence of more complete sets of drawings by Delaune on the same subject suggest that he might have intended more plates to illustrate the history of the Genesis in a more thorough manner, although the prints are yet to be found. Many of these prints represent, simultaneously, two or more episodes separated in time, following the 16th century tradition, inherited from the Middle Ages. Most of them are also inspired on the engravings by Bernard Salomon, created to illustrate the "Quadrins historiques de la Bible" (Historical Biblical Scenes) by Claude Paradin, first published in Lyon in 1553.