Category: The Madonna

It is distinctly related, that Joseph brought up his foster Son as a carpenter, and that Jesus exercised the craft of his reputed father. In the Church pictures we do not often meet with this touching and familiar aspect of the life of our Saviour. But in the small decorative pictures painted for the rich […]

We now come to the Nativity as historically treated, in which time, place, and circumstance have to be considered as in any other actual event. The time was the depth of winter, at midnight ; the place a poor stable. According to some authorities, this stable was the interior of a cavern, still shown at […]

Ital. L’ Adorazione dei Pastori. Fr. L’Adoration des Bergers. Ger. Die Anbetung der Hirten. The story thus proceeds : When the angels were gone away into heaven, the shepherds came with haste, ” and found Mary, and Joseph, and the young Child lying in a manger.” Being come, they present their pastoral offerings — a […]

Ital. L’ Adorazione de’ Magi. L’ Epifania. Fr. L’ Adoration des Rois Mages. Ger. Die Anbetung der Weisen aus dem Morgenland. Die heilige drei Konigen. (Jan. 6.) This, the most extraordinary incident in the early life of our Saviour, rests on the authority of one evangelist only. It is related by St. Matthew so briefly […]

Ital. La Purificazione della B. Vergine. Ger. Die Darbringung im Tempel. Die Beschneidung Christi. After the birth of her Son, Mary was careful to fulfil all the ceremonies of the Mosaic law. As a first-born son, he was to be redeemed by the offering of five shekels, or a pair of young pigeons (in memory […]

Ital. La Fuga in Egitto. Fr. La Fuite de la Sainte Famille en Egypte. Ger. Die Flucht nach Aegypten. The wrath of Herod against the Magi of the East, who had escaped from his power, enhanced by his fears of the divine and kingly Infant, occasioned the Massacre of the Innocents, which led to the […]

Ital. Il Riposo. Fr. Le Repos de la Sainte Famille. Ger. Die Ruhe in Egypten. The subject generally styled a ” Riposo ” is one of the most graceful and most attractive in the whole range of Christian Art. It is not, however, an ancient subject, for I cannot recall an instance earlier than the […]

Before quitting the subject of the Riposo, I must mention a very pretty and poetical legend which I have met with in one picture only : a description of it may, however, lead to the recognition of others. There [was] in the collection of Lord Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers, a Riposo attributed to Giorgione, remarkable […]

Of the various titles given to the Virgin Mary, and thence to certain effigies and pictures of her, some appear to me very touching, as expressive of the wants, the aspirations, the infirmities and sorrows, which are common to poor suffering humanity, or of those divine attributes from which they hope to find aid and […]

According to some authorities, the Holy Family sojourned in Egypt during a period of seven years, but others assert that they returned to Judea at the end of two years. In general, the painters have expressed the Return from Egypt by exhibiting Jesus as no longer an infant sustained in his mother’s arms, but as […]