The Christ Child as a professor sitting at a desk in the believer's heart, lecturing to angels. Engraving by A. Wierix, ca. 1600.

[Antwerp] : Anton. Wierix, [1600?]

1 print : engraving, with etching ; image 7.7 x 5.5 cm.

Sunt auscultent qui Platoni, aut facundo Ciceroni, aut mundi stultitiae. Tu ne verba vitae sperne: Audi patris aeviterne dicta sapientiae. Anton. Wierx fecit et excud. The book held by Christ bears lettering: Erunt omnes docibiles Dei ("All shall be the pupils of God") Translation of lettering: Some listen to Plato or to eloquent Cicero, or to the stupidity of the world. [But] you, do not scorn the words of life! Listen to the Father's sayings of everlasting wisdom!

In the seventeenth century the prints in this series (Cor Jesu amanti sacrum) were used in catechisms by Jesuit preachers in Fujian, China: E. Menegon, op. cit.

M. Mauquoy-Hendrickx, Les estampes des Wierix, vol. 1, Brussels 1978, nos. 439

Hollstein's Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts, 1450-1700, vol. LXI, The Wierix Family: part III, compiled by Zsuzsanna van Ruyven-Zeman, Rotterdam 2003, no. 457

Eugenio Monegon, 'Jesuit emblematica in China: the circulation of allegorical images in late Ming Fujian, according to Chinese and Western sources', Monumenta serica, 2007

Wellcome Collection 31760i