Christ confounding the doctors
Medium
Etching and aquatint in green ink
Dimensions
Sheet (Trimmed): 16 7/16 × 15 1/8 in. (41.7 × 38.4 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953
Accession Number
53.600.2490
Art Historical Context
Behold *Christ Confounding the Doctors*, a 18th-century print Andrea Scacciati after Giovanni Battista Moroni, between 1750 and1770. This etching and aquatint depicts the biblical moment from Luke 2:41–52, where the young Jesus astounds the temple elders with his wisdom, a popular theme in Christian art symbolizing divine precocity. Moroni, a masterful 16th-century Lombard realist known for his penetrating portraits, likely inspired the original composition, which Scacciati faithfully reproduced, bridging Renaissance painting traditions with Enlightenment-era printmaking. The work's medium—et...