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The Circumcision

A work made of pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, heightened with white opaque watercolor, over black chalk, on buff laid paper, laid down on buff laid card.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, heightened with white opaque watercolor, over black chalk, on buff laid paper, laid down on buff laid card.

Date:

1601

Artist:

Abraham Bloemaert
Dutch, 1566-1651

About this artwork

In this dynamic drawing, Utrecht-based Abraham Bloemaert created a thoughtful compositional study for this scene from the early life of Christ. Bloemaert described the Virgin and the attendant figures in the foreground with expressive gestures—fingers spread and arms outstretched into space as if in an attempt to stop the circumcision taking place before them. A mass of faintly sketched figures in the background suggests how Bloemaert might have realized the composition in his next phase of execution.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Abraham Bloemaert

Title

The Circumcision

Place

Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1601

Medium

Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, heightened with white opaque watercolor, over black chalk, on buff laid paper, laid down on buff laid card

Inscriptions

Signed recto, lower left, in brown ink: "A Bloem: fe: 1601" [date may be added at a later time according to Bolten]

Dimensions

Primary support: 27.7 × 27.6 cm (10 15/16 × 10 7/8 in.); Secondary support: 28.2 × 28.2 cm (11 1/8 × 11 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection

Reference Number

2013.897

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/215326/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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