Léon Bonnat’s Jacob Wrestling with an Angel (1876) | Change My Name – Theresa Rézeau Fine Art

July 9, 2026

Léon Bonnat, Jacob Wrestling with an Angel (1876), depicting Jacob struggling with the angel in a dramatic biblical scene.

By Theresa Rézeau

Can a new name truly change a person, or does it simply reveal the person they were becoming all along?

Throughout history, names have carried extraordinary significance. They have marked family, identity, belonging and reputation. A name can inspire honour or provoke fear. It can open doors or close them. Some spend a lifetime trying to protect the one they were given. Others long to leave it behind. Yet the deepest transformations have rarely begun with a change of name alone. They have begun with a change of character.

Author’s Note

This essay was inspired by standing before Jacob Wrestling with an Angel by Léon Bonnat at Sotheby’s in London during the 19th & 20th Century European and British Art sale in July 2026.

Some paintings are admired. Others refuse to let you leave unchanged.

This was one of them.

The full essay continues in the Membership Archive, where Jacob’s struggle becomes a reflection on identity, transformation and what it means to emerge from an encounter no longer carrying quite the same name, or the same self.

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