3-084-912 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Job on the Dungheap, c1505. This panel - later trimmed at the top - once formed the exterior of an altar retable. Job is an Old Testament figure who is repeatedly smitten with bad luck and tested by God. Here, he endures his trials on a dung heap, accompanied by his wife and friends. The latter attempt to cheer him up with music, while his spouse pours a bucket of water over her sick husband in what may be an allusion to the 'Bath of Job' chapel in Annaberg, Saxony, presumably the painting's original location. In the background, Sodom/Gomorrah in flames.