Elijah Receiving Bread from the Widow of Zarephath

Elijah Receiving Bread from the Widow of Zarephath, painted in 1621 and now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, depicts the episode from 1 Kings 17 in which the prophet Elijah, during a famine, asks a widow gathering sticks to bring him water and bread. She protests that she has only a handful of meal and a little oil for a final meal for herself and her son before they die of hunger. Elijah promises that if she feeds him first, her supplies will not fail until rain returns — and the miracle unfolds. The episode was a canonical Old Testament prefiguration of the Eucharist and of faith rewarded against all apparent reason. Its pairing with the Liberation of Saint Peter (also 1621, Getty) suggests the Getty's collection may preserve a group of related canvases from a single cycle or campaign of work.

Oil on canvas, the 1621 dating places this alongside other Getty Lanfrancos, suggesting a period of concentrated productivity on scriptural subjects. The modest domestic setting — sticks, jar, simple clothing — contrasts with the divine promise at the scene's heart, a contrast Lanfranco's light would have underscored dramatically.