Maria met Kind, Elisabet en Johannes de Doper als kind 1617 - 1675

Curator: This engraving, created sometime between 1617 and 1675, is attributed to Lucas Vorsterman I, and it depicts the Virgin Mary with Child, Elizabeth, and John the Baptist as a child. Editor: Immediately I'm struck by how this print renders an intimate and perhaps divinely ordinary domestic scene in baroque tones. There's something compellingly pious here, even as it flirts with the everyday. Curator: It is a history painting rendered in the Baroque style, characterized by its dramatic composition and rich textures, despite being just black and white. Consider how Vorsterman has managed the interplay of light and shadow to give depth and volume to the figures. Note how the folds in the drapery are carefully articulated, creating a sense of movement. Editor: I see it too – all those textural effects. You feel you could reach out and touch those cherubic limbs or wrap yourself up in those heavy robes. Also the two figures' tender gazes connect in a kind of familial sphere. And do you notice that it is not the adults looking to one another, rather is the Infant Jesus in the lap of his mother, Mary, looking to St. John. Very profound, but at the same time intimate. Curator: The arrangement of the figures also follows a distinct compositional logic, forming a pyramidal shape that centers on the Virgin Mary. This, and other structural devices were quite common for this theme, in the style of the period. The composition emphasizes the sanctity and central role of Mary within the scene. Also, this is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Interesting, knowing it is at the Rijksmuseum certainly deepens my interest. Knowing all of that formal framework helps to reveal an ordinary story, as something more complex and rich with feeling, even now, all these years later. Thanks for that detailed and sensitive analysis. Curator: And thank you for helping to tease out the less measurable emotive elements, to give some heart to a set of complex lines.