This painting, which dates from 1888 and was made in Pont-Aven, Brittany, is one of Gauguin's most famous works. The Breton women, dressed in distinctive regional costume, have just listened to a sermon based on a passage from the Bible. Genesis (32:22-32) relates the story of Jacob, who, after fording the river Jabbok with his family, spent a whole night wrestling with a mysterious angel. In a letter the artist wrote to Van Gogh he said 'For me the landscape and the fight only exist in the imagination of the people praying after the sermon.'
Credit: Purchased 1925
1888
Oil on canvas
72.2 x 91.0 cm
NG 1643
Image © National Galleries of Scotland collection. Photo, National Galleries of Scotland., 2025 Text © National Galleries of Scotland, 2025
Paul Gauguin, Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), 1888)
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Paul Gauguin, Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), 1888
Audio Tour | National
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