Genre
SIEGFRIED GERHARD REINHARDT (1925–1984)
Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors, 1949
Oil on board, 35 3/4 x 17 3/4 in.
Signed and dated (at lower right): SIEGFRIED / REINHARDT / 1949
EX COLL.: the artist; to Morton P. Rome, Wyncote, Pennsylvania, about 1950–1980; to his widow, Marjorie T. Rome, Wyncote, Pennsylvania, 1980–2003; to her daughter, by descent, 2003 until the present
As had always been true, and would remain so for all his life, Reinhardt found sustenance in his Lutheran religion and Biblical texts, both those of the Old and New Testaments. Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors references a familiar story from the Book of Genesis. The patriarch Jacob (also known as Israel) gives his favorite young son, Joseph, a splendid coat. Joseph is a dreamer, gifted with prophetic dreams and the ability to interpret them. His elder half-brothers, already envious, become even more so when Joseph relates two dreams in which he triumphs over them. The brothers conspire to harm Joseph. They seize his coat and plunge him into a large dry pit. When a traveling group of merchants pass nearby, the brothers sell Jacob into slavery for twenty silver pieces. Smearing the hated coat with goat’s blood, the brothers tell their father that Joseph has been attacked and killed by a wild animal. Through a series of misadventures, Joseph finds himself in Egypt, where his gift of divination—that is, the interpretation of dreams—leads him to become the Pharaoh’s chief advisor. Accurately foretelling a seven-year famine, Joseph directs Egypt to store sufficient grain to survive and even to trade its surplus. Among those who come as customers, suppliants fleeing famine, are Joseph’s brothers. Twenty years have passed, and Joseph is now a great man. The brothers do not recognize their former victim, Joseph, but Joseph knows his brothers. After a series of trials that Joseph imposes on the brothers, he reveals himself and forgives them. Joseph is reunited with his father and the family prospers.
The tale of Joseph and his coat is a dark story. Understanding allegorically that all humans are siblings, that is, the children of God, it describes an uncomfortably recognizable family dynamic, a rivalry that only after numerous twists and turns finally resolves into a happy ending. Good is rewarded and justice triumphs, but not before multiple instances cruelty, pain, and suffering. Joseph thus offers an apt postwar story for a veteran looking for hope and redemption through his faith. Reinhardt chooses as his moment in the story the point at which Joseph’s brothers are about to strip away his richly decorative coat. The viewer sees a young Joseph is surrounded by grasping hands and evil visages—his own half-brothers. Joesph’s face, serious, but perhaps not totally comprehending of future hardship, is, in fact, a self-portrait of the artist.
