Artist: Callot, Jacques (French, 1592 – 1635)
Title: The Holy Family at Table (Le Bénédicte)
c. 1628
etching and engraving
1969.15.106
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Student Curator Comments:
The Holy Family at Table by Jacques Callot is an exceptional print in many ways. This religious depiction is remarkable in the artist’s body of works for Callot is best known for multi-figural festival scenes. It is also unusual in the way its religious subject is handled. Here the holy become domestic as Joseph cares for Christ with paternal tenderness. He holds a crystal chalice to Christ’s lips to help the infant drink. The Latin inscription below the roundel (or circular scene) describes the symbolic significance of his actions: “Come dear boy, drink the cup, another awaits you that will not fall from your hand except in death.” This humble moment reminds the viewer of Christ’s Last supper. Joseph’s importance in this scene reflects the saint’s increasingly popular veneration during the Counter Reformation.  He is pictured as an engaged, doting parent, a role typically reserved for Mary.  Her presence, however, is not insignificant. Mary looks on approvingly at her child and her spouse, creating an intimate family unit. The light that radiates from her halo and from her very being also illuminates the scene, casting the figures in contrast. Light and darkness, humanity and divinity, humility and love, suffering and glory to come, combine here in a way only worthy of the divine.