Hagar in the Desert Consoled by an Angel

The poignant story of Hagar and Ishmael is related in the Book of Genesis, chapter 21. At the age of 90, Abraham’s wife Sarah, who had previously been barren, gave birth to a son, Isaac, as God had promised. However, Abraham already had an illegitimate son with his concubine Hagar. To prevent the boy, Ishmael, from challenging Isaac’s inheritance, Abraham banished mother and child, sending them alone into the wilderness with only bread and a bottle of water.


Jan Muller shows Hagar and Ishmael at their moment of greatest danger and drama. Having run out of water, they have taken shelter under a clump of trees. Ishmael is stretched out on the ground at the left, near death, while Hagar turns away, unable to watch him, when an angel suddenly appears. He touches Hagar on the shoulder and with his other hand points to a flowing stream, just visible in the lower right corner, where they can get water.


Muller was one of the most sought-after Mannerist printmakers, engraving the compositions of the leading artists of his day. Hagar in the Desert is one of the relatively few prints based on his own design. In it his bravura engraving technique, with its extreme swelling and tapering lines is on full display, particularly evident in the swirling and knotted bark of the tree trunks and the drapery. The figures themselves– Hagar’s remarkably well-muscled body, Ishmael’s foreshortened pose, and the angel’s flowing robes and languid gesture – typify Northern Mannerism at its height.