Job Mocked by his Wife

Georges de La Tour painted Job Mocked by His Wife around 1620–25, an early treatment of the Old Testament story in which Job, afflicted with terrible suffering to test his faith, is mocked by his wife who urges him to curse God and die. La Tour's daylit treatment — unusual for a religious subject in his output — depicts the moment of confrontation between the suffering Job and the torch-bearing, dismissive wife with a directness that gives the biblical scene a domestic intimacy. The work is one of La Tour's most psychologically specific early compositions, the contrast between Job's endurance and his wife's impatience rendered through posture and expression without the mediation of his characteristic nocturnal contemplative setting.

The confrontation between the two figures is starkly lit by a single candle, with Job's emaciated body and his wife's gesturing form creating a dramatic contrast of light and shadow.