Jacob and Esau (Jacob achetant à Esaü son droit d'aînesse)

Etching with a Biblical scene of the Genesis, illustrating the passage in which Esau sells his birthright to Jacob. The composition, as is common in many of Delaune's Biblical scenes, illustrates simultaneously three distinct episodes from history: on the front, Esau sells his birthright to his brother (Genesis 25:29-34); on the background, to the left, Esau chases a deer, pointing an arrow with his bow towards it (Genesis 27:2-5), and to the right, Jacob intercepts the blessing of Isaac (27:18-20). This composition is very complex, the buildings around the scenes both separating them and showing their relationships. On the first scene, Jacob is seen closer to the foyer and the fire, symbolically closer to civilization, and possibly signifying the fecondity of his descendence, while Esau, closer to the exterior, to nature, with a tree close to his feet, represents sterility. Esau sells his birthright for a bowl of lentils, possibly a prefiguration of Christ's temptation. Jacob's blessing, on the place of his brother, possibly signifies the substitution of the old alliance by a new one, likely an allusion by Protestant Delaune to the Reform. The inscription below the illustration summarizes the main episode in the scene, in which Esau trades his birthright for a plate of lentils.



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.