Private Collection, Texas

This iconography is based on the scriptural account of Christ entering the Temple at the age of twelve: 'And it came to pass, that after three days they [Mary and Joseph] found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.' (Luke 2:46-7) Mary and Joseph can sometimes, as in the current version, be seen entering the temple. The passage is understood as the beginning of Christ's ministry as it is the first time he makes his knowledge public.

 

In the Orℱthodox Church the event is celebrated during mid-Pentecost (feast between Easter and Pentecost. Russian: Преполовение), though the feast is unknown in the west. Because the theme is not one of the 12 Great Feasts of the Church that are included on the festal tier of an iconostasis, the subject is rare in iconography. There are no Byzantine objects of 🐠this scene until the eighth century, though western examples (from Perugia and Milan) can be found as early as the fourth. The classical Byzantine iconography with Christ in the middle on a raised throne with two or three doctors either side, and sometimes with Mary and Joseph entering the temple from the left or right, derives from the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390).