Potiphar's Wife: Joseph's First Love

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Recommended: Sexuality in art history

Potiphar's Wife: Joseph's First Love

Potiphar’s wife as seen through the eyes of Guido Reni comes to life with her soft looking skin and tender face as she stares longingly up at Joseph. Then her figure falls back into the painting as her pale flesh tones coupled with swirling velvet garments around her body create a surreal setting. She is at once real and unreal. Her features are relaxed, but her intentions are aggressive. Potiphar’s wife embodies the mystery Reni saw in women, capable of being at once threatening and innocent.

Joseph, like Reni, is both opposed to Potiphar’s wife and at the same time his eyes linger on her face in an expression of unspoken desire. When she first asks Joseph to lie with her Joseph doesn’t drawback because he thinks Potiphar’s wife is ugly to look upon, or has had her sexuality tainted by another man. Instead it is Joseph’s fear of Potiphar’s wrath that holds Joseph back. He claims that Potiphar “...neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?(Genesis39:9).” However, just as Joseph’s figure lingers in shadow in Reni’s painting, so too do Joseph’s true feelings remain cloaked behind his words and actions. “...as she spake to Joseph day by day...to lie by her...it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within(Genesis39:10-11).” If Joseph is capable of running a prosperous plantation in his master’s absence, and has shown the ability to turn the disadvantage of being a slave into a better life as chief overseer, why does he foolishly fall into Potiphar’s wife’s trap? The answer is that he knows full well that entering into his master’s home will result in another encounter with Potiphar’s wife, and another offer to lie in her bed. His excuse is that he has business to conduct, but as the overseer of the master’s homestead there is no shortage of men below him that he could send to do business up at the master’s house. Instead Joseph repeatedly returns to Potiphar’s wife, denying her advances, but at the same time aroused by her flirtations.

In their final rendezvous Potiphar’s wife reaches out for Joseph’s garments and snags them in her hand.

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