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The Lord's Prayer (Le "Pater Noster")

James Tissot

European Art

Gathered around Jesus, the disciples ask him to teach them to pray. With arms opened wide and hands upraised in a gesture of humility, Jesus begins his prayer with an acknowledgment of God’s power in heaven and on earth. (Tissot places Jesus between the color-streaked sky and the ground on which his disciples sit, further signifying Jesus’ place between the human and the divine.) This invocation became the foundational prayer for his followers.
MEDIUM Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper
  • Place Made: France
  • DATES 1886–1896
    DIMENSIONS Image: 8 1/2 x 6 7/16 in. (21.6 x 16.4 cm) Sheet: 8 1/2 x 6 7/16 in. (21.6 x 16.4 cm) Frame: 20 x 15 x 1 1/2 in. (50.8 x 38.1 x 3.8 cm)  (show scale)
    SIGNATURE Signed bottom right: "J.J. Tissot"
    COLLECTIONS European Art
    ACCESSION NUMBER 00.159.167
    CREDIT LINE Purchased by public subscription
    PROVENANCE 1900, purchased from the artist by the Brooklyn Museum.
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    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
    CAPTION James Tissot (Nantes, France, 1836–1902, Chenecey–Buillon, France). The Lord's Prayer (Le "Pater Noster"), 1886–1896. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, Image: 8 1/2 x 6 7/16 in. (21.6 x 16.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by public subscription, 00.159.167 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 00.159.167_PS1.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 00.159.167_PS1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2006
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