Italian School, circa 1700, Moses Distributes Manna to the People

Italian School, circa 1700

Moses Distributes Manna to the People

Oil on canvas (relined). 108 x 86 cm.

This work depicts the scene from the Old Testament in which Moses distributes Manna to the people of Israel. According to Exodus, God fed his people with this mysterious substance during their 40 year sojourn through the desert: "And in the morning there was a layer of dew round about the camp. And when the layer of dew was gone up, behold upon the face of the wilderness a fine, scale-like thing, fine as the hoar-frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another: 'What is it?'--for they knew not what it was. And Moses said unto them: 'It is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded: Gather ye of it every man according to his eating" (Ex. 16:13-16)

In the present work, carried out in grisaille technique and possibly intended as a bozzetto, we see Moses in the left edge telling the chosen people how to collect manna. Typologically, the distribution of the manna corresponds to the Last Supper in the New Testament. Thus, in one of the most well-known representations of this scene in S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, Tintoretto combines this scene with a depiction of the Last Supper.