Blue and White Biblical Charger

Description

The center painted with ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac’ depicting the angel appearing to Abraham as he raises his sword to slay his kneeling son, a steaming pot to the left and the goat lunging toward shrubbery in the foreground, a hilly landscape beyond within a duodecagonal panel, the rim with four oval panels of stylized oriental flowers alternating with blue-ground panels of scalework or hatchwork, and the underside with X and O devices separated by slashes.

Note:
The decoration on this dish depicts one of the Old Testament’s most powerful examples of obedience and faith: the story from Genesis, Chapter 22, verses 1-18, of Abraham who was commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. The father and son traveled to Moriah, as instructed, Abraham having told Isaac that they would make a burnt offering of a lamb, but after he had constructed an altar with wood, Abraham bound Isaac and placed him on the altar. As he was about to slay his beloved son, the angel of the Lord appeared and stopped him, saying, “Abraham, Abraham! Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” At that moment, Abraham spied a ram in a nearby thicket, and he caught the animal and sacrificed it instead of his son.

Similar example:
An identical large plate in the Stadtgeschichtlichen Museum, Frankfurt (inv. no. X28101) is illustrated in A. Feulner, Frankfurter Fayencen, Berlin 1935, pl. 61, fig. 186.