Christ at the bedside

Jesus sits by the bedside of the girl he has just raised from the dead. He is holding the girl’s hand and looks tenderly into her eyes. He has just truly affected a cure, unlike the physicians of old confined by necessity to the dictum of “guérir parfois, soulager souvent, consoler toujours”*—usually attributed to the famous French surgeon Ambroise Paré (1510-1590) but believed to be actually centuries older.

This etching is after the style of Gabriel Cornelius von Max (1840-1915) Czech-born Austrian artist who also produced some interesting works such as the Martyress (woman affixed on the cross), Lady Macbeth, and monkeys reading or judging art.

Christ sits at the bedside of Jairus’s sickening daughter. Etching after G.C. von. Max. Wellcome Collection. CC BY

* ”to cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always”

Fall 2019   |  Sections  |  Art Flashes