1811.129
Christ Among the Doctors
Artist
Johannes van der Stradanus (Jan van der Straet, the younger)
(Bruges, Belgium, 1523 - 1605, Florence, Italy)
Title
Christ Among the Doctors
Creation Date
after 1551
Century
16th century
Dimensions
16 1/8 in. x 10 15/16 in. (40.9 cm. x 27.8 cm.)
Object Type
drawing
Creation Place
Europe, Netherlands
Medium and Support
brush and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk on paper
Credit Line
Bequest of the Honorable James Bowdoin III
Copyright
Public Domain
Accession Number
1811.129
This drawing by Flemish-born painter Stradanus, who spent most of his professional life in Florence, depicts the twelve-year-old Jesus in
the Temple in Jerusalem conversing from the lectern, the Bimah, with a multitude of attentive religious scholars (Luke 2:41-52). Mary enters from the right, intuiting the moment’s significance. The centralized classical architecture of Stradanus’s invention shows some features--such as the lectern, the arc for safekeeping the Torah, and the balcony--that characterize a sanctuary
of a synagogue. Stradanus envisioned Christ teaching the Jews at about the time Pope Paul IV published the papal bull “Cum nimis absurdum” (1555), which repressed Jews living in the Papal States, made their attendance of Catholic sermons mandatory on Shabbat, instituted a Roman ghetto, and resulted in a migration of many to Florence. Sephardic Jews also flocked to Florence from Spain and Portugal until Cosimo de Medici installed a ghetto there in 1571. This work is believed to be a preparatory sketch for another, slightly larger and more developed drawing in the Uffizi, Florence.