Christ and the Virgin in the House at Nazareth

There is no scene like this in the Bible. Zurbaran, working in Seville during Spain's fierce Counter-Reformation, invented a quiet domestic moment and loaded every object in it with meaning. The boy Jesus has been weaving a small crown of thorns and has pricked his finger on it, and his mother looks up from her work, her eyes wet, as if she already understands where this ends. The lilies and roses on the table stand for her purity, the pair of doves for the soul, the open books for the old prophecies about to come true. Pictures like this were made for private prayer, to be looked at slowly and read detail by detail. Even the thread of blood on the child's finger is a rehearsal for the Crucifixion still years and years away.