Ruth and Boaz

Walter T. Crane’s 1863 painting “Ruth and Boaz” depicts a scene from the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible. The painting depicts Ruth, the woman on the left in red, and Boaz, the man on the right in armour, on a grass field, and a small pitcher and two plates between them. Behind them is a mountainous landscape and a forest on the left. Right behind Ruth and Boaz are three male workers picking at the grass on the left, a castle on a mountain on the right, and a brown horse and a white horse in front of the mountain, which the viewer could infer as Ruth and Boaz’s horses. According to the Book of Ruth, Ruth was a Moabite woman who is perhaps best known as the great-grandmother of David, the first king of Israel. Ruth’s first husband, Mahlon, was an Israelite. After the death of Mahlon, as well as Ruth’s father-in-law and brother-in-law, Ruth stays with Naomi, her mother-in-law. Ruth and Naomi eventually relocate to Judah, where the former meets her wealthy relative Boaz, the other central figure portrayed in Crane’s painting, and wins his heart over with her kindness, and eventually marries him, and has a son named Obed, David’s grandfather.