The Holy Family with Saint Anne and the Young Baptist and His Parents

Jacob Jordaens

early 1620s and 1650s · Oil on wood · European Paintings

Jordaens frequently revised his own paintings after many years, as he did here. The Christ Child, Mary and Joseph, the Virgin’s mother Saint Anne, and probably a version of the infant Saint John the Baptist were depicted as a close family gathering in the early 1620s. At least twenty-five years later the artist added boards to the oak panel and painted the Baptist’s parents, Saints Elizabeth and Zacharias, and an angel on the left. Their more painterly style contrasts with the Caravaggesque modeling of the earlier figures. The cartouche, inscribed "If the root be holy, so are the branches" (from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans) was added during the second stage of work. The shift from intimate to didactic presentation is typical of Jordaens’s late work.

Artist

Jacob Jordaens

Date

early 1620s and 1650s

Medium

Oil on wood

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Purchase, 1871