“Joseph Reveals His Dream to His Brethren” by James Tissot

Bible Illustrations by James Tissot

“Joseph Reveals His Dream to His Brethren” by James Tissot

Bible Illustrations by James Tissot

Artist: James Tissot
Year: 1836-1902
Medium: gouache on board,
Dimensions 6 15/16 x 7 3/8 in. (17.6 x 18.7 cm) to 8 7/8 x 12 7/16 in. (22.6 x 31.6 cm)
Museum: Jewish Museum, New York

“The Plague of Locusts” by James Tissot

“Moses Speaks to Pharaoh” by James Tissot

The Plague of Flies

Joseph Makes Himself Known to His Brethren

James Tissot

Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836 – 1902), anglicized as James Tissot, was a French painter and illustrator. He was a successful painter in Paris before moving to London in 1871. He became famous as a genre painter of fashionably dressed women.

He knew James McNeill Whistler and Edgar Degas, but turned away from Impressionism and focused mainly on portraits and genre paintings of the Victorian upper classes in a more polished academic style. Tissot depicted his subjects with almost photographic realism. He also developed a reputation for composing ambiguous narratives that hinted at risqué behavior among the wealthy classes and the boundaries of propriety.

Late in his career, Tissot had a revival of his Catholic faith, which led him to spend the last fifteen years of his life painting Biblical events. At a time when French artists were working in impressionism, pointillism, and heavy oil washes, Tissot was moving toward realism in his watercolors.

To assist in his completion of biblical illustrations, Tissot traveled to the Middle East in the late 1880s to make studies of the landscape and people.