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Lot Essay
The present work is one of six scenes depicting the infancy and childhood of Christ etched by Rembrandt in 1654. The iconography is somewhat unusual since the scene is usually depicted as taking place in the temple, but here Rembrandt sets the scene in a stable, creating a more intimate domestic backdrop. It is also a more accurate depiction and conforms to the account of the event in the Apocrypha. Under Mosaic law, a mother may not enter a temple until she is purified, forty days following the birth of her child, but since the circumcision must take place on the eighth day a site other than a synagogue would have been preferable.
This is a very fine example of the second state. The first state, which only differs from the present iteration in that it has sharp plate corners, is unobtainable - only two impressions are known. In the third state, some of the small biting flaws in the plate are burnished out. The subsequent states are posthumous and reworked.
This is a very fine example of the second state. The first state, which only differs from the present iteration in that it has sharp plate corners, is unobtainable - only two impressions are known. In the third state, some of the small biting flaws in the plate are burnished out. The subsequent states are posthumous and reworked.