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Jan Saenredam

Plate Five, from Five Wise and Five Foolish Virgins

1606
Engraving on paper
26.5 × 36.8 cm (10.4 × 14.5 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Jan Saenredam was a Netherlandish engraver, draftsman, and mapmaker. This engraving series illustrates a parable from the book of Matthew (25:1–13). Plate four (1972.790) shows a bridegroom emerging from a doorway marked with a Christological sculpture of a lamb. He admits five wise virgins carrying full oil lamps into his wedding feast, a metaphor for heaven. Five foolish virgins, who have wasted their oil in frivolous pursuits, beg the wise virgins to lend them oil so that they may also enter. Plate five reveals that these foolish virgins have been barred from the feast because, when they left to replenish their lamps, they returned too late.

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