Isaac blessing Jacob

This canvas depicts one of the stories of Genesis in which Jacob, the younger of Isaac's twin sons, deceives his blind and dying father in order to receive his blessing from him by making him believe that he is his brother Esau, the eldest and first-born, the only legal recipient of this blessing, from whom he has already bought his birthright for a plate of lentils. Rebekah, their mother, on Jacob's behalf because he is her favourite and God's chosen son, instigates Jacob to carry out the deception. Jacob approaches his father's deathbed with his arm wrapped in sheepskin to resemble the hairy arm of Esau. In the lower left-hand plane the game stew that Esau was to bring to his father before the blessing. The light mainly illuminates the hands of the old man holding Jacob by the arm and the faces of Jacob and his mother, the rest of the painting is in semi-darkness to emphasise the deception and the protagonists.