The adoration of the magi: Balthasar steps up to present a censer of frankincense to the Christ Child. Engraving by E. Fessard after C.J. Natoire.

A Paris (cloître St. Benoît) : chez l'auteur, [1752]

1 print : engraving, with etching ; platemark 53.2 x 30.1 cm

Tableau du côté droit de l'autel. C. Natoire pinx. St. Fessard sculp 1752

Edmond Pognon and Yves Bruand, Inventaire du fonds français, graveurs du XVIIIe siècle, Bibliothèque nationale, Département des estampes, tome IX, Paris 1962, p. 65, no. 322

Madeleine de Terris, 'L'Épiphanie en estampes', Ad vivum: L'estampe et le dessin anciens à la BnF, 6 January 2012, https://estampe.hypotheses.org/tag/adoration-des-mages (accessed August 2018)

Rena M. Hoisington, 'Étienne Fessard's prints of the chapel of the Hôpital des enfants trouvés in Paris', Print quarterly, 2019, XXXVI, no. 4, pp. 404-425 (this print reproduced on p. 414 as "The wise man Balthazar and his retinue")

Wellcome Collection 3049668i

After: one of the wall paintings by Natoire in the chapel of the new building of the Hôpital des enfans-trouvés, Paris. The institution had been founded by Saint Vincent de Paul in 1638. The new building was constructed around 1747 on the site of the old church of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Ardents, near Notre Dame. The north and south walls each had four bays of paintings in the lower register, and the north wall held two paintings of the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul with orphans in the upper register. The east wall held three paintings in the lower register (one of of which is shown in the present print) and a large painting of God in glory with angels in the upper register. Two paintings of Saint Vincent de Paul and Sainte-Geneviève-des-Ardents in niches were among the paintings on the north and south walls. The building and the paintings were destroyed in 1866, when a new building for the Paris Hôtel Dieu was constructed on the site