a visit with jesus

 Bible Art

Sacrifice of Isaac
Artist: Lorenzo Ghiberti
 1401-02    Relief

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Competitors for the 1401 commission of the new doors for the Florence baptistery were required to create a panel depicting the Old Testament story of Abraham´s sacrifice of his son, Isaac. In the story, God tells Abraham that he must sacrifice Isaac but at the moment he is poised to strike his son down with a knife, an angel appears to stop the fatal blow. Competitors were required to portray the scene and include the following elements within a quatrefoil form: Abraham, the donkey, the two male companions, the altar with wood and fire, Isaac, the intervening angel, and the ram.

This bronze is in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence 

Saint Barbara
Artist: Jan van Eyck
 1437    Drawing

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The composition depicts the young Saint Barbara, a woman of Syrian descent who lived during the reign of emperor Maximian (305 - 311) just before Christianity was adopted by Rome under the rule of Constantine. According to legend, her beauty was so great, her father locked her away to keep her safe allowing only he and those under his discretion to visit her. After years of isolation, followed by her refusal of all suitors, her father allowed her to leave the tower. Soon thereafter, she encounters Christianity and secretly converts to the fledgling, and then illegal, religion. Throughout being attacked, starved and later tortured by her pagan father and city officials she remains true to her new faith. After being paraded through the town with another tortured martyr, she was beheaded by her father, who was, in turn, struck by lighting. 

This drawing on Oak Panel  is housed in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium