After Jacopo Carucci, called Pontormo

A particularly fine 18th century copy after Pontormo's original which was commissioned as part of a series of fifteen panels by the leading Florentine artists working at the beginning of the 16th century, commissioned by Pier Francesco Borgherini in 1515 for the camera nuziale in the Palazzo Borgherini, Florence. The original is now in the National Gallery, London (see L. Berti, L'Opera Completa del Pontormo, Milan 1973, pp. 91-92, cat. no. 40, reproduced plate 40).

The subject is taken from the book of Genesis chapter 42 verses 1-8. It depicts the moment when his brothers, without recognising the brother they had sold into slavery, beg for his help during the famine which was affecting Eygpt and Canaan.