Massacre of the Innocents
17th century
Medium
Red chalk, heightened with white, on brown paper
Dimensions
19-7/8 x 14-1/2 in. (50.5 x 36.8 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Cephas G. Thompson, 1887
Accession Number
87.12.80
Tags
Art Historical Context
This poignant 17th-century Italian drawing, *Massacre of the Innocents*, captures the biblical tragedy from the Gospel of Matthew, where King Herod orders the slaughter of Bethlehem's infant boys to eliminate the newborn Jesus. Anonymous yet masterful, the artist evokes the raw horror of the event through tangled figures of frantic mothers, soldiers, and dying children—a dramatic subject popular in Baroque art for its emotional intensity and moral depth. Executed in red chalk heightened with white on brown paper, the medium allows for rich tonal contrasts and luminous highlights, mimicking th...