The Education of the Virgin
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
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About this painting
The mother of the Word is being taught her letters. No Gospel authorises the lesson: Anne is named in no canonical book, only in apocrypha, earliest the Protoevangelium of James. Joachim stands behind them, watching rather than teaching.
Bolswert's engraving prints a psalm beneath: hearken, O daughter ... forget thy people and thy father's house. Her father is the man at the back.
Rubens painted it for one of two small altars in the Discalced Carmelite church near his own house. His Saint Teresa hung across the transept, same size: a girl learning to read, and a woman who wrote.
Sources: KMSKA, Antwerp, object page, inv. 306 · KMSKA, 'Opvoeding van Maria', provenance fields · KMSKA, inv. 299, provenance fields · Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. 17.3.2667 · Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. 51.501.7165 · Historians of Netherlandish Art Reviews; Herremans, Snoeck, 2013 · Healy, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard IV,1, via HNA Reviews · Catholic Encyclopedia, 'St. Anne' · Psalm 44:11, Douay-Rheims · Catholic Encyclopedia, 'St. Teresa of Avila'
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 23,003 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.