The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 12, 2026

A horizontally oriented print in dense black-inked fine lines depicts three people with light skin tones in a dark interior. Mary, wearing a head covering, sits on our right near an arched window and cradles the baby Christ. Behind her, Joseph leans over an open book. Shaded with fine hash marks, heavy shadows fill the room where a draped bed and chair stand on the left. Light streams through the window, illuminating them.

The Holy Family in an Interior

1643

Ferdinand Bol

(Dutch, 1616–1680)
Netherlands
etching, drypoint and engraving
Sheet: 18.2 x 21.6 cm (7 3/16 x 8 1/2 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2024.85
Catalogue raisonné: Hollstein 4, only state (undescribed state); Bartsch 4; Dutuit 4
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The tall basket laid on its end visible in this composition is a bakermat, a legless couch typical in 17th-century Netherlands that was placed on the floor for nursing.

Description

Ferdinand Bol made this etching just one year after he left the studio of his famous teacher, Rembrandt van Rijn, adopting his master’s motif of a dark domestic interior as the setting for a biblical scene. Here, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus sit within a contemporary Dutch interior with the light from a window the sole source of illumination, revealing an open book at a small desk. The rest of the room is in deep shadow. As Mary nurses the child, Joseph stands by with a swaddling cloth. To their left is a curtained cupboard bed of the type commonly found within Dutch living rooms, a bassinet, a nursing basket set on its end, a chair, and various vessels and containers. To the right of the family is a hearth and the barely discernible cat, calmly watching the scene. Bol’s broad, meshed lines simultaneously darken the room and reveal the various, closely observed domestic objects related to caring for an infant.
  • ?–2024
    (C.G. Boerner, New York, NY, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
    September 9, 2024–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • {{cite web|title=The Holy Family in an Interior|url=false|author=Ferdinand Bol|year=1643|access-date=12 July 2026|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2024.85