The Foolish Virgins Rejected
ca. 1635
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 3/4 × 12 11/16 in. (22.2 × 32.2 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1925
Accession Number
25.2.46
Tags
Art Historical Context
Abraham Bosse's *The Foolish Virgins* (ca. 1635) is a striking etching that dramatizes a key biblical parable from Matthew 25: the story of the Ten Virgins where five unprepared "foolish" ones barred from the wedding feast the bridegroom, symbolizing spiritual vigilance. As a leading French printmaker of the 17th century, B captures this moral tale with vivid emotional intensity, focusing on the women's expressions of despair and rejection at a barred door—fitting the era's Baroque emphasis on dramatic light, shadow, and human pathos. Rendered in etching—a revolutionary intaglio technique Bos...
About the Artist
Abraham Bosse · 1602–1676
Abraham Bosse (1604–1676) was a French printmaker and theorist whose approximately 1,600 etchings provide an unparalleled visual record of 17th-century French life. Born to Huguenot parents in Tours, he trained in Paris under Melchior Tavernier and became a devoted follower of Jacques Callot's technical innovations. Bosse's meticulous etchings depicted subjects ranging from daily life and fashion ...