Yours
In a space almost entirely shrouded in shadow, light falls across a bearded man kneeling in front of a woman cradling an infant, as about a dozen people to our left look on in this horizontal painting. The people all appear to have light skin, though some are deep in shadow. The scene is painted with dabs and soft strokes of peanut and coffee brown, golden yellow, ivory, smoke gray, and muted terracotta red, so many of the details are indistinct. At the bottom center of the painting, the man, woman, and baby are small in scale, reaching less than halfway up the composition. The kneeling man…
Gallery mode Full size at the museum

Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.

The Circumcision

Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 - 1669)

1661

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 56.5 x 75 cm (22 1/4 x 29 1/2 in.) ; framed: 81.3 x 99 x 8.2 cm (32 x 39 x 3 1/4 in.)
Culture
Dutch
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CNE-B
Credit line
Widener Collection
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art

More by Rembrandt van Rijn

See all

More Baroque

See all