Watchcase with Gospel Scenes

France, mid-17th century
Gold and painted enamel
Metropolitan Museum of Art

In Matthew 4:1-11 Jesus has been forty days in the desert when Satan comes to tempt him but gives up and goes away after three unsuccessful tries. When he leaves, angels come and "minister" to Jesus.

Most images of this passage picture Satan's temptations, and the few that have the ministering angels instead will at least show him flying off. But here he is completely absent, and the desert of the gospel narrative is suggested only by the rocks and dead tree on the far right. In contrast, the angels enter from a verdant wood on the left, and behind Jesus are the blue waters of a lake. Thus the image expresses the serenity that follows one's resistance to temptation.

The blue lake repeats the color of the waters in the image above, where Mary nurses the baby on the Flight into Egypt. Her robe and mantle repeat the colors of Jesus' garments in the scene below. The effect is to emphasize the serenity of both "escapes" from the malign forces struggling against Jesus' mission.

Read more about images of the temptations in the desert.
Read more about the Flight into Egypt.

Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.