Christian caritas
The hungry girl in the centre seizes a piece of bread. Behind her a child gulps greedily as a jug is put to her lips. On the far left, a boy pulls off his rags. Jan de Bray depicted three works of Christian charity: feeding, quenching the thirst and dressing the orphan. He painted it for the regentenkamer, the trustees’ room, in the Arme Kinderhuis in Haarlem. The picture hangs here as a guest exhibit: orphanages were founded in many towns and cities in the Republic. And paintings hung in many regentenkamers as visual reminders of the duties of the regenten, the trustees.
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