Late Gothic Carved Oak Group Depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac

A late Gothic carved oak group representing Abraham and Isaac at the Sacrifice, one of the most dramatic episodes of the Old Testament.

Abraham is shown standing above the smaller, kneeling figure of his son Isaac. The compact arrangement of the two figures, with Isaac positioned immediately before Abraham, corresponds with the established medieval iconography of the Sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham would originally have been shown preparing to strike his son, before being stopped by the angel of the Lord.

The group is now fragmentary and the attributes that would have made the subject immediately recognisable have been lost. Abraham’s missing arm or hand would probably have held the sacrificial knife, while other elements of the original composition may have included the ram, the altar or bundle of wood, and possibly an angel. Such projecting details were particularly vulnerable to damage and loss in medieval sculpture.

Carved in oak and conceived with considerable sculptural presence, the group was probably originally incorporated into a larger ecclesiastical setting, perhaps an altarpiece or devotional ensemble. Its losses reveal something of its long history while leaving the essential relationship between Abraham and the kneeling Isaac remarkably powerful.