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Marc Chagall’s “Sacrifice of Isaac” is part of a postwar series of works originally designed for an interfaith chapel that was to be erected in the abandoned Chapelle du Calvaire in Vence, France. Chagall seems to depict the subject in a traditional form: The angel stops Abraham from killing Isaac, who lies passively on the altar, one eye closed as in death, the other awake both to the intended sacrifice and to the last minute reprieve. To the left, a lamb-like ram stands behind a tree; Sarah appears further to the left, in accordance with the legend in the midrash (a genre of rabbinic literature that includes homilies and commentaries on the Bible) that the devil showed her the events taking place on Moriah, thus causing her death.