TO UNDERSTAND THE SCENE

A man leaves or rather flees from a wife who holds him back by his cloak.

The woman is sitting or lying in a big bed; she is often undressed and tries to seduce a young man who runs away. But he leaves his cloak because the woman seizes it at the last moment. The representations are quite varied according to whether the emphasis is put on the woman’s desire, Joseph’s honesty or the Egyptian context.

The young man is Joseph; Jacob and Rachel’s son, who has been sold by his brothers as a slave in Egypt. After many setbacks, he is employed at the house of one of Pharaoh’s officers, named Potiphar, and he has become his right-hand man.

But the officer’s wife desires Joseph and, one day, asks him to sleep with her. He runs away but the garment she has seized will lose him. Accused by the wife, he is sent to jail.