The Circumcision in the Stable

The present work is one of six scenes depicting the infancy and childhood of Christ etched by Rembrandt in 1654 (see also lots 31, 37 & 41). The iconography is somewhat unusual since the scene is usually depicted as taking place in a temple, but in this instance Rembrandt sets it in a stable, creating a more intimate, domestic backdrop. It is also a more accurate interpretation of the event, as described 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.

This is a very fine, atmospheric example of the second state. The first state, which only differs from the present iteration in that it has sharp plate corners, is unobtainable - only two impressions are known. In the third state, some of the small biting flaws in the plate are burnished out. The subsequent states are posthumous and reworked.