Jacques Jordaens, Moses and his Ethiopian Wife

Moses is perhaps the greatest Old Testament prophet. He led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the desert to the Promised Land. With God’s help, he also performed miracles. He parted the Red Sea, made water flow from a rock, and manna fall from heaven when food ran out. Moses also received the Stone Tablets with the Ten Commandments from God. 

Moses is usually depicted with the Ten Commandments, a key passage in the Bible. But in this painting by Jordaens, the spotlight is on the beautifully dressed black woman standing next to him. This is his Ethiopian wife, whose name is unknown. Moses appears to be confronting us, with a powerful hand gesture. Perhaps he wants us to recognise his African wife as an equal. 

In his left hand, Moses still holds the Ten Commandments, but we cannot make out what is written on the stone tablets. You only see their dark back. In the painting, Jordaens seems to want to emphasise not the text itself, but rather the message: the value of charity, regardless of skin colour. A very modern statement.  

Interestingly, Moses’ wife is not depicted as an African stereotype, but as a real woman with a personality of her own. Again, this is astonishingly progressive for the 17th century. 

We have no idea whether Jordaens ever painted an African woman from life. What is clear, however, is that – like Rubens – he chose to depict African figures as humans. The nuances of skin tone and individual traits attest to his respect, whereas his predecessors and contemporaries often resorted to caricatures and clichés.

This painting is related to an older study by Jordaens. Although the compositions are very different, several striking similarities reveal that the drawing is in fact an early study for the painting. Compare the two, and you get an insight into Jordaens’s creative process. 

We see a great artist searching, reflecting, and even abandoning his earlier idea to convey his modern message even better in a new composition.  

In the painting, Jordaens puts love front and centre. He is one of just a handful of old masters of Western art to take a critical look at the relationship between white and black people in his time. His painting shows that even 400 years ago, some people were already fighting for equality. In that sense, he was very much ahead of his time.