Ruth

Signed with artist’s seal on lower edge

The original plaster edition of this piece is only available as a gift to Rivkah Walton’s DeMedici Collective Patrons.

This relief presents a midrashic (interpretive) portrait of the biblical figure of Ruth. She stands in the field of barley that figures prominently in her story.

Known in rabbinic literature for her modesty, she is portrayed in a headscarf, a common sign of modesty throughout the Middle East. On it is “embroidered” the pivotal line in the Book of Ruth, spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi, as she pledges to accompany her back to Bethlehem from Moab: “Where you go I shall go….” (Ruth 1:16) The line is rendered in contemporaneous paleo-Hebraic script, which dates to the Bronze Age era of the Judges.