Christ of the Cornfield "and He Said Unto Them, the Sabbath was Made for Man,and Not Man for the Sabbath." Mark, Ii, 27.

A chapter and verse in the title

This recorded title carries its own citation: Mark, chapter two, verse twenty-seven, the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath. That is the episode. The disciples pluck ears of corn while walking through a field on the sabbath, are challenged for it, and the answer becomes one of the most quoted lines in the gospels. A title that includes the verse is telling the viewer to read the picture as an argument.

Where it falls in the cycle

In the ministry, among the disputes rather than the miracles. It belongs with the healing on the sabbath and the woman taken in adultery: episodes in which the conflict is about the law, and which accumulate into the case brought at the trial. Very few works in this catalogue take a saying as their subject rather than an action.

The record

The catalogue names Thomas Francis Dicksee, dates the canvas to 1883, and enters the location as Private Collection, with no city or country given. It measures 104.1 x 139.7 cm, horizontal, which suits a field. The style is entered as Academicism and the artist as British; the subject fields class the work as a single male figure. The measured palette reads as yellow. Nothing can be said about where the canvas is, and nothing is.