Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

Bethany: Martha, Mary, and the one thing needful

The tenth chapter of Luke gives the episode in five verses. Christ is received in a village house; Martha works at the serving while her sister Mary sits and listens; Martha complains and is answered. Painting fixed it as a domestic interior with three figures and a visible division of labour — one standing with food, one seated at his feet. It is a teaching scene with no miracle in it.

Its place in the sequence

Mid-ministry, among the episodes set in houses rather than on roads or shores. It is distinct from the later Bethany scenes involving the same sisters — the raising of Lazarus and the anointing — which sit much closer to the Passion. Read in order, this one is the quiet visit; those are the approach to Jerusalem.

The record

The catalogue gives Johannes Vermeer as the artist and 1654 as the date of creation, with the work recorded at the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. It measures 160 by 142 centimetres, which is large for this painter as the record presents him. The style is entered as Baroque, the artist as Dutch, and the subject as a group of figures and religious. The measured palette reads as brown.