Jacob's Dream () is a 1639 oil-on-canvas painting by the Spanish Tenebrist painter José de Ribera (Lo Spagnoletto).
Description It measures and is in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Analysis Jacob appears as a shepherd sleeping, resting on his left shoulder with a tree behind him. In the background on the other side is the ladder that he sees in his dream. It is not a wooden ladder but a ladder of light, "pointing heavenwards, with angels like little birds climbing up it".Celia Paul (2019). Self-Portrait. New York Review Books, p. 130. Penguin edition.
Influences The American 20th-century abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler cited Ribera's Jacob's Dream as an inspiration for her 1957 painting titled Jacob's Ladder, currently in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
References
External links El sueño de Jacob, El Prado Jusepe de Ribera, 1591-1652 , Issued in connection with an exhibition held Sept. 18-Nov. 29, 1992, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see pages: 135–137).