The Circumcision in the stable (B., Holl. 47; H. 274)

The present work is one of six scenes depicting the infancy and childhood of Christ etched by Rembrandt in 1654. The iconography is somewhat unusual since the scene is usually depicted as taking place in the temple, but here Rembrandt sets the scene in a stable, creating a more intimate domestic backdrop. It is also a more accurate depiction and conforms to the account of the event in the Apocrypha. Under Mosaic law a mother may not enter a temple until she is purified, forty days following the birth of her child, but since the circumcision must take place on the eighth day a site other than a synagogue would have been preferable.
Reproduced actual size