Jean Fouquet ca. 1420 – 1477/81

Job and his False Comforters

illumination (c. 21 × 15 cm) — 1452-60 Museum Musée Condé, Chantilly

Jean Fouquet biography

This work is linked to Job 2:12

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In the King James Version, Job sat down among the ashes. But in the Vulgate, the Latin translation that Jean Fouquet probably used, he sat "in sterquilinio", i.e. on a dung-hill.

That is where Job was found by his three friends, who had become concerned about his well-being. They decide to sit with him in order to support him. One of them sticks his foot in the dung and is clearly repelled by the smell.

This is one of the illuminations Fouquet made for the famous book of hours of the French treasurer Étienne Chevalier.

The castle in the background is an accurate depiction of the chateau de Vincennes, in France.

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