The child lies in the straw beside Mary, who rests half sitting.
Bible in art · Luke
The Adoration of the Shepherds: with the Lamp
Rembrandt · c. 1654
National Gallery of Art, Washington
A small etching of about 1654, from the years when Rembrandt made several prints of the childhood of Jesus. The lines are quick and open, almost like a pen sketch, and the bare paper stands for the lamplight.
In a barn of planks and thatch the shepherds crowd in at the left and peer over a rail. Mary rests in the straw beside the baby, Joseph kneels close by, and an ox and a donkey look on from their stall.
From the text
- The shepherds go to “see this thing that has happened” (Luke 2:15)
- “They hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the Baby” (Luke 2:16)
The artist’s own
- A Dutch barn with a small oil lamp on a ledge
- The ox and the donkey — Luke names no animals; painters added them by old custom
- A child of the shepherds peering over the rail
Details
The baby
Joseph
A bearded man kneels beside them and turns toward the visitors.
The shepherds
Shepherds in hats and caps crowd at the door; a boy leans on the rail to look.
The lamp
A little oil lamp on a ledge gives the print its name.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Dutch, 1606–1669. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Gift of W.G. Russell Allen, 1955.6.3) · Etching (and burin where biting failed in state i) · 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)