Antique Painting Moses and the Bronze Snake Oil on Canvas '600

Oil on canvas, mounted on a reinforced canvas. 17th-century Northern Italian school. The scene is taken from the biblical book of Numbers: because the Israelites, fleeing Egypt and wandering through the desert, complained to God about the lack of food and water, God sent poisonous snakes to exterminate them, but also ordered Moses to raise a bronze serpent on a pole, so that anyone bitten by it would be healed. Symbolically, this gesture, turning one's gaze toward the serpent, implied an act of conversion and faith in God. In this representation, the pole is more specifically shaped like a cross, anticipating the salvation that will come to humanity through the Crucified and Risen Christ, who frees humanity from the sin symbolized by the serpent. Moses is at the center of the scene, pointing to the pole with the serpent, flanked by his brother Aaron; around the men and women of Israel, some overwhelmed by serpents, others already kneeling as supplicants asking for God's forgiveness. The work is presented in a frame composed of late 19th-century elements, adapted.