We now own an original Rembrandt engraving. To be more accurate it is an original heliogravure by Rembrandt. A heliogravure is an engraving made from a new plate which is made from the original print. So it is not a copy of the original but is an engraving made from a plate as the original was made.
However what is great about this gift from my friend Jim Forest from Holland, when he was staying with us, is not that it is an original heliogravure but the subject matter.
The etching is of an old man leaning on the bottom half of a split door and offering a family of vagabonds a coin. The mother figure is accepting the coin and the father figure in the hat seems to be blind. This artistic creation from the imagination of Rembrandt speaks to me how individuals and society should treat the poor. Nowadays if family went door to door begging the police would probably be called. Our society has created a whole system of treating the poor and needy which does not include giving them money. Beggars are looked down upon in our society and many are instructed to ignore them and do.
The picture reminds me of a story about C.S. Lewis the same friend, Jim, shared with me: “One day, Lewis and a friend were walking down the road and came upon a street person who reached out to them for help. While his friend kept walking, Lewis stopped and proceeded to empty his wallet. When they resumed their journey, his friend asked, “What are you doing giving him your money like that? Don’t you know he’s just going to squander all that on ale?” Lewis replied, “That’s all I was going to do with it.””
Jesus was found of beggars. I read from a biblical scholar that a more accurate translation of “Blessed are the poor” would be “Blessed is the blind beggar”. In Jesus’ time, as in our time, a beggar was someone society had rejected and was to be ignored. Jesus said of beggars “for theirs is the kingdom of God.”
Jesus and others have said that a nation is judged by how it treats it least, the poor blind beggar or vagabond family. By those standards we better start being like the man in the etching giving to beggars at the door.
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