The Life of Christ- Engraving from the Evangelicae Historiae Imagines by Hieronymus Nadal 1593 P.81

The Evangelicae Historiae Imagines book included 153 engravings illustrating key events from the life of Christ based on the liturgical Gospels. In this engraving, The print illustrates the biblical story of Jesus healing ten lepers, as described in the Gospel of Luke. It depicts the moment Jesus encounters ten lepers outside a settlement. The lepers are instructed to show themselves to the priest and are cleansed on their way. Only one of them, a Samaritan, returns to give thanks to Jesus. 

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, commissioned the project, which Nadal oversaw, though both died before its completion. This pioneering series of engravings was created to help Jesuit novices with meditation on the Gospels as part of their spiritual exercises.

The engravings, showing the life, death and resurrection of Christ, were made by some of the best Flemish engravers, including the Wierix brothers at Antwerp, Jan II and Adriaen Collaert, Charles de Mallery, after drawings by the Italian painter Bernardo Passari and a few after Maarten de Vos. The book became an important source for Spanish Colonial Art. 

The present famous print series of the life of Christ soon became a highly important work for Jesuit missionaries and, moreover, a masterpiece of Flemish engraving at the end of the 16th century, engraved by some of the best Flemish engravers of its time in exceptional quality.

Mr. Christopher W. Charles purchased a collection of these prints over 30 years ago from a Sotheby's auction. 

Published in Antwerp in 1593