The Christ Child as Fountain of Life stands in the heart of the believer, with blood streaming from his hands and feet and being collected by angels. Engraving by A. Wierix, ca. 1600.

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

1 print : engraving, with etching ; image 7.9 x 5.6 cm.

Bone Iesu fontes fluant, in cor nostrum toti ruant, gratiarum rivuli. Illis animam mundare, a peccatis expiare, Ecce gaudent angeli. Anton Wierx fecit et excud. Translation of lettering: Good Jesus, into the heart let fountains flow, let all the streams of graces [flow]. With them to clean the soul and expiate [it] from sin, behold angels rejoice

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, no. 445

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. 456

J. Peto (ed.), The heart, New Haven and London 2007, p. 103

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 31732i

Hollstein records two prints as bearing the number 2 in this series (the present print and Hollstein no. 455 [Wellcome Library catalogue no. 31786i], and no print as bearing the number 3 or 8: one of the two prints numbered as number 2 might be number 3 or number 8