Christ among the Doctors (Dürer)

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This article is about a painting. For the biblical episode, see Finding in the Temple.
Christ among the Doctors
Albrecht Dürer - Jesus among the Doctors - Google Art Project.jpg
ArtistAlbrecht Dürer
Year1506
TypeOil on poplar panel
Dimensions65 cm × 80 cm (26 in × 31 in)
LocationMuseo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Christ among the Doctors is an oil painting by Albrecht Dürer, dating to 1506, now in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain. The work dates to Dürer's sojourn in Venice, and was executed (according to the inscription Opus Quinque Dierum, meaning "Made in five days") hastily while he was working at the Feast of the Rosary altarpiece.

According to some sources, it could have been given to painter Giovanni Bellini. In the latter's house it was perhaps seen by Lorenzo Lotto, who used one of the figures in the painting for his Madonna with Child between Sts. Flavian and Onuphrius now in the Borghese Gallery. The subject had been already treated by Dürer in a woodcut of the Life of the Virgin series and in a panel of the Seven Sorrows Polyptych. However, in the Venetian work the German artist adopted a totally new composition, with the characters occupying the whole scene and surrounding the young Jesus, leaving a little room for the black background.

The topic is the Finding in the Temple episode from Jesus' childhood, found in the Gospel of Luke. The character at the left of Jesus is a true caricature, perhaps inspired by one of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings seen by Dürer. The man in the lower left corner has a cartouche on his beret, a custom of the Pharisees. [Citation Needed - this may have been customary for depicting the Pharisees, but there is no evidence to suggest Pharisees actually wore any special garments, let alone head-coverings. cf. Turner, Katie. "'The Shoe is the Sign!' Costuming Brian and Dressing the First Century." In Jesus and Brian, edited by Joan E. Taylor, 221-37. London: T&T Clark, 2015.; Schwartz, Joshua. "Clothes Make the Jew: Was There Distinctive Jewish Dress in the Greco-Roman Period?". In Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity, edited by Alicia J. Batten and K. Olson, 247-56. London: T&T Clark, 2021.] The one on the opposite side is perhaps a citation of Bellini.

Sources[]

  • Costantino Porcu, ed. (2004). Dürer. Milan: Rizzoli.
  • Martina Sauer (2021), Affordance as a Method in Visual Cultural Studies Based on Theory and Tools of Vitality Semiotics. A historiographic and comparative study of Formal Aesthetics, Iconology, and Affordance using the example of Albrecht Dürer’s Christ Among the Doctors from 1506, New York and São Paulo: Art Style Art & Culture international Magazine 7, pp. 11–37
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