This charming oil on copper is first mentioned in Windsor Castle in 1792 and again in 1816. It was removed to the Queen’s Gallery at Hampton Court where it is listed in 1861 with an attribution to ‘Huens’. Unfortunately no such artist existed; the name appears occasionally in 18th and 19th Century inventories, probably as a label invented out of convenience (or confusion) for unattributed works. There is no more reliable record of a painter of this name.

This work belongs to the tradition of small scale copper narrative paintings, such as those by Johann Rottenhammer, which were highly valued in throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The figure style suggests that employed by Venetian artists in the first half of the eighteenth century, but also adopted in France and England. There is a hint of Rembrandt’s influence in the strong shadows and anecdotal detail – like the child more interested in the dog than in Christ’s blessing. All these things suggest an artist working in England at the time of Hogarth – producing in miniature a more gentle and conventional version of his decoration for the staircase of St Bartholomew’s Hospital of 1736.

The subject is taken from St Matthew’s Gospel (19; 13-14): the disciples rebuked those that had brought their children to be blessed, but Christ replied ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven’. We see here a mix of remonstrating disciples and mothers with their children; Christ seated to the right.