The Wedding Feast at Cana

Download3060 × 4000 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Lavinia Fontana (Italian, 1552–1614)
Medium: Oil on copper
Size: 47.3 × 36.2 cm (18 5/8 × 14 1/4 in.)
Culture: Italian
Museum: J. Paul Getty Museum
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

The Wedding Feast at Cana, a small painting intended for private devotion, depicts an episode from the life of Christ from the Gospel of John (2:1-11) in which Jesus, his mother Mary, and his disciples are invited to a wedding. When Mary notices that the wine has run out, Christ delivers a sign of his divinity by turning water into wine at her request. Here, Christ and Mary are seated at the center of the table, with the bridegroom on their right and the bride seated at the head of the table. Other guests, some standing and some seated, are assembled around the table.

Behind them servants arrive with plates of food. Fontana shows the moment of the miracle, when Jesus raises his hand in benediction. The prominent golden jugs in the foreground are evidence of the miracle. A credenza with a rich display of silver plates occupies the wall on the left. An elegant exedra-shaped peristyle, accessed via a double semicircular staircase, part concave and part convex, appears in the upper part of the composition. The artist has painstakingly applied the paint in thin layers and added rich glazes, resulting in a polished, luminous, and highly detailed composition.

Text: J. Paul Getty Trust, CC BY 4.0.