Art, literature & history
Joseph and his Brethren
c. 1657
- Dating
- Approximate date range
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Etching on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- 35.3 × 43.6 cm (13 15/16 × 17 3/16 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1920.2348
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- CC0 1.0License details
Pier Francesco Mola. Joseph and his Brethren, c. 1657. Inventory 1920.2348. Pier Francesco Mola; Art Institute of Chicago. Collection credit: The Wallace L. DeWolf and Joseph Brooks Fair Collections. CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). https://www.artic.edu/artworks/106677. Full-frame proportional resize and JPEG compression.
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Joseph and his Brethren — Pier Francesco Mola. c. 1657.
Medium: Etching on cream laid paper. Dimensions: 35.3 × 43.6 cm (13 15/16 × 17 3/16 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
The largest and most ambitious of Pier Francesco Mola’s small oeuvre of five etchings, this composition is related to a fresco of the same biblical subject painted by the artist in the Quirinal Palace in Rome. Joseph is shown pardoning his 11 brothers, who jealously sold him into slavery in his youth. As the distant pyramid suggests, the scene takes place in Egypt, where Joseph became an important advisor to the pharaoh, saving the country from famine. His brothers, who remained in Canaan, were starving until they sought Egypt’s help and were thus reunited with Joseph.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.