MORONE, Domenico
(b. ca. 1442, Verona, d. ca. 1518, Verona)

The Announcement of the Death of Uriah to King David and Bathsheba

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Oil on panel, marouflaged, 44 x 49 cm
Private collection

Uriah the Hittite was the first husband of Bathsheba, with whom King David was in love, and who carried the King's child. When Uriah refused the King's instruction to return from battle to spend time with Bathsheba - thus disguising the source of her pregnancy - King David ordered his general, Joab, to place Uriah in the front line and withdraw his support, leaving him to certain death (2 Samuel XI, 15).

The two panels by Morone narrating this story are probably the end panels from a marriage cassone, and would have borne a powerful moral lesson on marriage to the newly wed couple to whom the chest would have belonged.




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