Hagar and Ishmael, 1822 (oil on canvas)

Oil on Canvas. Ishmael and his mother, the handmaiden of Abraham's wife Sarah, cast into the desert. According to the biblical story, Hagar was the Egyptian servant of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Abraham had a child, Ishmael, by Hagar but when Sarah miraculously gave birth to Isaac, she asked Abraham to banish Hagar with her son to the desert. When they ran out of food and water they sat down and the mother could not bear to look at her child dying but an Angel appeared to her telling her he would survive to become the father of a great nation, the Ishmaelites. She then found a source of water.