Jozef en de vrouw van Potifar 1615

Curator: Welcome. We're standing before Orazio Borgianni's etching, "Joseph and Potiphar's Wife," created around 1615. It’s part of the Rijksmuseum’s collection, a powerful example of Baroque narrative art. Editor: Woah, what a scene! Intense drama. You can feel Joseph's panic, he's practically leaping out of the frame. And the sheer desperation radiating from Potiphar's wife… it's like a stage play frozen in time, but done in meticulous lines. The whole image feels alive with raw emotion. Curator: Indeed. Borgianni has depicted a pivotal moment from the Book of Genesis. Examining the materiality, note the fine lines achieved through the etching process, and think of the labor involved in the creation of each impression of this design. How this piece would circulate is important; Baroque art served as visual rhetoric, disseminating religious and moral tales through various social strata. Editor: You're so right. The economy of lines—the artist totally understood light and shadow to maximize emotion. It’s amazing how the simple hatching can evoke such powerful feelings and storytelling; from the implied movement to that figure in the bed. Are we meant to see him there? Almost voyeuristic, unsettling. It's more than just illustration; it is charged with a complex undercurrent. Curator: That figure perhaps alludes to an accepted acceptance or blindness toward such actions, the materiality almost rendering him into the very furniture in the space, unseen but part of the laboring classes, such as the women forced into serving. What is made visible here is tied so acutely to what is conveniently, yet intentionally obscured. Editor: Makes you wonder about Borgianni's intent, his own social position informing how this story is represented through art. It's one thing to retell the Bible, another to dissect power through the details of craft. That contrast itself is… provocative. Thank you, this makes one contemplate not only artistry but the forces that made it so impactful. Curator: Thank you, the layers inherent in materializing morality in artwork remain both illuminating, and concerning.