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Original fileDe drie koningen in een droom gewaarschuwd
About This Work
An angel with large, feathered wings stands beside a grand bed where the three kings sleep, gesturing toward them in a moment of divine revelation. The scene is set within a lavishly decorated interior featuring massive columns with lion-mask bases and a tiled floor. In the background, smaller vignettes show the Magi's retinue and their journey through a distant landscape.
This image illustrates the concept of divine communication through dreams (somnium), a subject of significant interest to Renaissance Neoplatonists and natural philosophers who studied the soul's receptive state during sleep. It reflects the Mannerist interest in architectural space and the tradition of using biblical narratives to explore the boundaries between the physical and spiritual worlds.
Inscriptions
Angelus in somnis alia discedere terra Iussit, ad herod
Translation
An angel in a dream commanded to depart to another land, to Herod
Connected Texts
Synesius of Cyrene
His treatise 'De Insomniis' (On Dreams) was a key Neoplatonic source for understanding how the divine communicates with humans through the imaginative faculty during sleep.
Cornelius Agrippa
In 'De Occulta Philosophia', Agrippa discusses 'prophetic dreams' as a form of natural divination where the soul receives impressions from higher intelligences.
Collections
Provenance & Source
Object
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
paper
height 212 mm x width 254 mm
religious
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 2, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.