The Sacrifice of Isaac

A moment of terror is frozen at the instant an angel interrupts Abraham’s raised knife.

What to notice

Compare Abraham’s forceful motion with Isaac’s exposed body and the angel’s intervention; the tension lives in their opposing gestures.

Discover

Andrea del Sarto left this painting unfinished, which makes its emotional drama inseparable from its visible working process. Transferred lines and thin veils of paint reveal how he revised the composition while building it.