REMBRANDT HARMENSZ. VAN RIJN
Leiden 1606 - 1669 Amsterdam
The Circumcision in the Stable (1st State), 1654
Etching
95 x 145 mm.; 3 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches
Reference:
Bartsch 47
White/Boon (Hollstein) 47-I (from II)
Nowell-Usticke 47-I (from III)
Biörklund/Barnard 54-B
Notes:
1. A fine, early impression of White/Boon’s 1st State before Rembrandt filled in the blank area, upper-center.
2. The iconographic tradition, as seen for example in Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut Circumcision in the Temple from the Life of the Virgin series, is that this event takes place in the temple. The Bible, however, is not precise concerning the place of the circumcision (Luke II, 21):
After eight days were completed before his circumcision could take place, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
The normal presentation of Jesus in the temple depicts the parents of Jesus as devout Jews, the faithful observers of the Law of the Lord, that is to say the Law of Moses. Rembrandt, in his earliest depiction of this scene (Bartsch 48, circa 1630), also placed this scene in the temple. However, as might have been pointed out to Rembrandt at that time, the Law of Moses does not allow young mothers to enter the temple until after a “purification” period of forty days. Thus, in order to include Mary in the scene, Rembrandt here reverts to the same manger location as in the Nativity. In addition, the warmth and simplicity of the manger corresponded more truly to the sensitivity of Rembrandt’s feelings than the hieratic grandiosity of the Temple. In 1661, representing this scene in a painting some seven years later (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), Rembrandt repeated his choice of the manger for the depiction of the circumcision.