The present drawing is related to a picture of the same subject, at the Bob Jones University Museum, Greenville, P. Rosenberg, La peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines, exhib. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1982, p. 351, fig. 6. The picture is dated to 1670-5 by Dieter Graf, Die Handzeichnungen von Gugliemo Cortese und Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Düsseldorf, 1976, p. 44. Though the compositions of the drawing and the picture are similar, there are a number of small differences, such as the shape of the shield of one of the Abimelech's soldiers and the direction of the head of the other soldier.
Four chalk drawings related to the composition are part of the large group of Courtois drawings in the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, two for the figure of Sarah and the others for Abimelech's two soldiers, Graf, op. cit., nos. 69-72, figs. 94-99.
At a time of famine Abraham migrated south with his beautiful wife Sarah. On entering the region of Gerar, Abraham pretended that Sarah was his sister, thinking that if it were known they were married, she would be taken away and he would be murdered. She was, nevertheless, abducted by Abimelech, the King of Gerar. God came to Abimelech in a dream and told him that the woman whom he had abducted was married. Sarah was returned to Abraham, and both returned to the North.