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Evelyn Dunbar:
Preliminary sketches for Joseph’s Dream
Framed (ref: 9117)
Pen and ink
12 x 15 in. (30.4 x 38 cm)

Tags: Evelyn Dunbar ink pen and ink Evelyn Dunbar at The Watts Gallery

Provenance: Roger Folley; Alasdair Dunbar; Hammer Mill Oast Collection

Literature: Evelyn Dunbar: A Life in Painting, Christopher Campbell-Howes, October 2016, pages 235-238. These are the very early, tentative sketches of what was to become Joseph’s Dream, the first of Dunbar’s trilogy illustrating the life, as told in Genesis, of Joseph, whose devastating accuracy in the interpretation of dreams led him to become, after intervening adventures including his attempted murder by his brothers, Pharoah’s right-hand man and the leader of the eventual Israelite presence in Egypt. Here Joseph, as a boy of about 10, dreams that one day his parents and his many brothers, represented in the final version by sheaves of wheat and by the sun, moon and stars, will bow down in obeisance before him. Which of course they did many years later, when they came cap in hand from famine-stricken Canaan to beg corn from the granaries of Egypt, overseen by none other than Joseph, whom they did not recognise, believing him to be dead.

We are grateful to Christopher Campbell-Howes for assistance.