Image Details

© Russell-Cotes Art Gallery And Museum, Bournemouth, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library

INCITED BY “JEZEBEL HIS WIFE,” King Ahab covets the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite in this 1879 oil on canvas by English painter Thomas Matthews Rooke. Jezebel plotted to have Naboth killed so that Ahab could take the vineyard as his own (1 Kings 21). When the deed was done, the prophet Elijah reproached Ahab with the famous line, “Have you killed, and also taken possession?” (1 Kings 21:19).