Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness

The drawing’s subject is based on the Book of Genesis (21:14–19). Hagar and her son, Ishmael, were sent away by Abraham and wandered aimlessly through the desert of Beersheba. They were in danger of dying of thirst, but God heard the boy’s crying and sent an angel to show them the way to a well.
[…] As can be recognized in the somewhat melodramatic movimento of the figures and in the coarse construction of the foreground, with its short, broken brush strokes and dashes, the Berlin drawing does not belong to the artist’s middle period – as suggested by Dreyer – but rather to his late period.