The Poor Widow's Offer

The Poor Widow's Offer is an original old master artwork realized by a follower of Marten de Vos (Antwerp 1532-1603) in the half of 17th Century.

Mixed colored oil on canvas.

Inscribed bottom right “Jesus Laudat Pauperculam […]”.

The painting, whose subject is taken from the Gospel episode of the Offering of the poor widow (Mk., 12, 38-44; Lk., 21, 1-4), depicts Jesus in the Temple pointing to a poor woman who is making drop two coins into the offering box. Jesus praises the gesture of the widow who with her mite had given everything she possessed, unlike the many rich people present who with their offerings, albeit greater, had not deprived themselves of anything. The representation in our painting of this Gospel passage, rarely depicted in ancient painting, is exemplified by an invention of Maerten de Vos (1532-1603) engraved by Jacques de Bie (1581-1640) and published, between 1598 and 1618 , both by Adriaen Collaert (1560-1618) and by Theodoor Galle (1571-1663). De Vos himself a few years later, in 1601, again confronted the same Gospel episode by including it in a large triptych preserved today at the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp.
Maerten de Vos was a prolific Flemish artist who devoted himself to painting as much as to drawing, devising a rich repertoire of images which then had a very wide circulation thanks to printed translations by the major engravers of the time.
Our painting is not a slavish copy of the engraving by de Vos but is an adaptation in a vertical format of the scene conceived horizontally and constitutes one of the rare translations in painting of this unusual Gospel passage.

The work is accompanied by an expertise of Dr. Patrizio Basso Bondini.