Hagar and the Angel in the Desert 1900

James Tissot created 'Hagar and the Angel in the Desert' at the height of his career as a Victorian painter. Here, the artist depicts a scene from the Old Testament. Hagar, a slave, and her son Ishmael have been banished to the desert. God sends an angel to save them, promising that Ishmael will found a great nation. Tissot was from France, but he spent the second half of his career in London. He was deeply interested in faith and mysticism, themes that were popular at the time. Although best known for his scenes of contemporary life, Tissot devoted the final years of his life to biblical subjects. He even travelled to the Middle East to study the settings and costumes for these paintings, an unusual step for an artist at this time. Historians of religion and culture have spent years researching the artist’s fascination with the divine and what it tells us about shifts in the Victorian attitude towards traditional religion.