The Holy Family, Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1632
etching, h 94mm × w 71mm More details
Rembrandt sets the scene in a fairly ill-defined interior. Yet the way the figure of the Virgin suckling the Child fills the foreground draws viewers into sharing this deeply intimate moment, as if we were in the room. Joseph, by contrast, continues reading unperturbed in the background. He often appears this way in 16th-century Italian prints, which may have inspired Rembrandt.
