The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 24, 2024
The Presentation in the Temple
c. 1654
(Dutch, 1606–1669)
Overall: 21 x 16.3 cm (8 1/4 x 6 7/16 in.)
Catalogue raisonné: White-Boon 50, only state; Bartsch 50
Location: not on view
Description
Rembrandt often illustrated the intimate meaning of biblical events. Here Simeon, to whom "it was revealed ... by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ," holds up the infant Jesus toward the High Priest, a frail figure who allows the prayer book to slip from his grasp. At the left, the Virgin Mary and Joseph humbly kneel in the shadows, while a priest with an enormous crozier towers over all. To Rembrandt, light symbolized divinity and spirituality. By using an unsystematic network of fine crosshatching in the background and by varying the density of groups of parallel lines on the figures, he created an evocative atmosphere where forms emerge from shimmering half-lights. Rembrandt's ability to create a rich pictorial effect with linear means can only be fully appreciated in superb impressions such as this one, where the drypoint accents are fresh and strong and the nuances of the shading are perfectly realized.- Cleveland Museum of Art, “Major Benin Bronze Plaque, Rembrandt Print, Other Works of Art Enter CMA Collection,” March 12, 1999, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.orgWatkins, Catherine Bailey. Rembrandt's 1654 Life of Christ Prints: Experimentation, Tradition, and the Question of Series. 2011. Reproduced: P. 221, fig. 95
- From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17-November 26, 2000).Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; September 17 - November 26, 2000. "From Rembrandt to Rauschenberg: Recently Acquired Prints."
- {{cite web|title=The Presentation in the Temple|url=false|author=Rembrandt van Rijn|year=c. 1654|access-date=24 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1999.3