Mary holds the swaddled baby, the brightest point of the picture.
Bible in art · Luke
The Circumcision
Rembrandt · 1661
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Rembrandt painted this small canvas in 1661, late in his life, with broad, loose strokes of warm browns and gold. Most painters set the circumcision in the temple; he sets it in the stable where the child was born.
Mary holds the swaddled baby on her lap while a man in a shining pale robe kneels before him for the rite. Behind them an elder reads from a large book, and onlookers crowd in from the shadows.
From the text
- “When the eight days until His circumcision had passed” (Luke 2:21)
- “He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him” (Luke 2:21)
The artist’s own
- The rite in the stable, with a ladder, a heavy hanging cloth and an animal in the dark
- Onlookers in turbans and caps, and a watcher leaning down from a high wall
Details
Mary and the child
The kneeling man
His pale yellow robe catches the light as he kneels before the child.
The book
An elder in a turban reads from a large open book.
The stable
A ladder and a heavy draped cloth show that this is a stable.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch, 1606–1669. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Widener Collection, 1942.9.60) · Oil on canvas · NGA Open Access: "Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)." (NGA open data: published_images.csv openaccess = 1)