Hortus Deliciarum, Josef wird von seinen Brüdern nach Ägypten verkauft

A group of brothers on the left side of the composition hands over the young Joseph, dressed in a distinctive striped tunic, to a pair of merchants. On the right, the merchants are shown with their pack animals, including a spotted camel and a donkey, as they prepare for the journey to Egypt. This illustration is a 19th-century facsimile reproduction of a lost 12th-century manuscript illumination.

As part of Herrad of Landsberg’s 'Hortus Deliciarum' (Garden of Delights), this work represents the 12th-century effort to consolidate theological and historical knowledge into a visual encyclopedia. In later Western esoteric traditions, Joseph’s descent into Egypt was often allegorically interpreted as the soul's descent into the material world or as a prefiguration of the Hermetic seeker's exile and eventual rise to wisdom.