Abimelech giving Sarah to Abraham (Abimelech rendant Sarah à Abraham)

Etching with a Biblical scene of the Genesis, illustrating Abimelech restoring Sarah to Abraham, after he took her thinking she was Abraham's wife. In the image, Delaune represents two scenes of the passage: in the background, Abimelech returns to Abraham his troops and wife (Genesis 20: 14-15), and on the foreground, to the left, he offers a thousand pieces of silver in compensation (Genesis 20: 16).




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 (Genesis 20) 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.