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Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileafter Hendrick Goltzius
Sarah is portrayed as a robust woman in 16th-century attire, standing at a table with a bowl and spoons while gesturing toward her chest. Through a doorway in the background, the 'Hospitality of Abraham' is visible, where three winged angels dine with Abraham and announce Sarah's future pregnancy. The print showcases the rhythmic, swelling line work and voluminous drapery characteristic of the Haarlem Mannerist style.
Sarah's miraculous late-life pregnancy was interpreted in Renaissance Neoplatonism and Christian Kabbalah as an allegory for the soul becoming fertile through divine grace rather than natural law. This engraving reflects the Dutch Humanist tradition of using biblical archetypes to represent moral and spiritual transformation within a domestic context.
HG Inuentor. Effoeto sterilis quanvis sit corpore Sara, Concipit illa tamen divino numine natum. C. Schonaus.
Translation
HG Inventor. Though Sarah be sterile in her worn-out body, Yet she conceives a son by divine power. C. Schonaus.
Philo of Alexandria
Philo's allegorical treatment of Sarah as 'Virtue' or 'Wisdom' who yields spiritual fruit through divine intervention was a key source for later philosophical readings of her story.
Object
Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem
Engraving
religious
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
https://hdl.handle.net/21.12102/532a5b96-4cfe-a50e-deff-cc35c3cd44fd
Public domain
2460 × 3354 px
08afef6ff16ce251256cb0f3a02eecbb9a97236d
April 20, 2019
March 23, 2026
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 1, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.