Circumcision of Christ

On the eighth day after birth, Jewish law called for a boy to be circumcised and formally given his name, and this small panel shows that moment for the infant Jesus. Mary has brought him in, watched by a woman and a young boy. The naming mattered as much as the rite, for this is the day the child is first called Jesus, and in the church calendar it became the feast kept on New Year's Day. Mazzolino was drawn to temple interiors and painted them again and again, so he sets this sacred act inside a crowded, richly built hall. The whole thing stands only about 40 centimetres tall, a cabinet picture made for private devotion and close looking rather than for any altar.