Christ Blessing Little Children
(Matt. 19:13–15; Mark 10: 13–16; Luke 18:15–17)

"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not". The words were provoked by the disciples' attempt to turn away those who brought their children to Christ to be blessed. The Savior is depicted laying his hand on the head of a small child who may be standing or kneeling beside him. Other children cluster round. Mothers, holding infants in their arms, look on. Fathers too may be present. Two or three of the apostles, usually Peter and perhaps also James and John, watch disapprovingly. The theme is with few exceptions confined to the art of northern Europe where it was first popularized in the 16th century by Lucas Cranach and his studio. It is afterwards often found in the work of painters of the Spanish Netherlands. According to one authority the sudden flowering of the theme arose from the friendship between Cranach and Luther, and reflects the painter's support of the religious reformer in his controversy with the Anabaptists. On the grounds that infants were incapable of faith this sect denied the validity of infant baptism, a doctrine which Luther however strongly upheld, and which the passage from the gospels may also be said to support. The theme is sometimes a vehicle for family portraiture, in contemporary dress, and may then commemorate a baptism or a confirmation.