The Sheepfold at Galilee from the collection of Miriam McClung

The Sheepfold at Galilee, 2003

Oil on Linen Canvas

50 x 42 x 1 in

Inv: 417-MM

NFS

Not For Sale

"The Sheepfold at Galilee" came out of McClung's 2003 trip to Israel, where she traveled to research and paint biblical scenes in the places they happened. She painted this one from her bedroom window at a bed and breakfast above the Sea of Galilee, looking down on a real sheepfold where, as she described it, the shepherd "came out every morning and took the sheep up to higher pasture."

The work illustrates Jesus's teaching about the Good Shepherd in John 10, with its single gate at the front of the pen and the shepherd among his flock, while the tin roof, rocky ground, and expensive houses on the hill above set the ancient image in a specific present-day place.

McClung noted the roof "could have been in Alabama," a reminder of how often she found her own home ground in these scenes—though here the sparse, indigenous trees behind it kept the setting unmistakably Israel.

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