The Star of the Magi
c. 1616
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
16.3 × 21.6 cm (6 7/16 × 8 9/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
80187
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Here Jan van de Velde the Younger engraved the earliest known print of so-called star-singers on Twelfth Night. This secular celebration mimicked the journey of the Three Magi, or kings, who followed the miraculous star of Bethlehem to the infant Christ. Popular in the 17th-century Dutch Republic, this Epiphany festival, held on January 6, grew beyond the church. It consisted of two parts: an indoor family feast crowning a king chosen by lottery, and a nighttime parade of singers carrying a cand...
About the Artist
Jan van de Velde, II · 1593–1641
Jan van de Velde II (1593–1641) was a Dutch Golden Age printmaker and engraver whose work represents one of the high points of early seventeenth-century Dutch graphic art. Son of the calligrapher Jan van de Velde I, he was born in Delft and trained as an engraver, likely under or in close contact with the Haarlem printmaking tradition that was producing some of the most ambitious graphic work in E...