The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven will be Humble like a Child

Executed entirely with a graver, the engraving demonstrates Gaultier’s precise, linear approach. The lines are crisp and the forms rigid, reflecting the formal compositional habits of his Paris workshop. The handling of light through the arched windows and the delicate carving of architectural details echo the meticulous style of the Wierix and Crispyn van de Passe circles.

Leonard Gaultier, who often signed his works as Galter, was an active French printmaker in late‑sixteenth‑century Paris. He produced many religious images after his own designs, and this piece is among the few that have survived in institutional collections. It entered the National Gallery of Art’s holdings through a mid‑20th‑century acquisition of European prints.

The engraving belongs to a period when French artists were absorbing Northern European print traditions while responding to the Catholic Reformation’s demand for didactic imagery. Gaultier’s work, with its restrained elegance and clear narrative, fits within a broader trend of using prints to disseminate theological concepts to a literate public.