The Child Learns a Trade
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Child Learns a Trade
Scripture Reference:
- Genesis 3 (further images / scripture text)
Description: While his mother watches over the bottom half of a Dutch door, a youth carrying a lunch bag leaves the family home in order to learn a trade. In the background various men are going to work, and a stork sits on her nest on the chimney of a house. Two cracks are apparent in the copper plate; one runs from the façade of the house in the background to outside the left margin line; the other from a little above the middle of the lower door in the foreground to outside the right margin line. The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649-1712) was responsible for drawing and etching this emblem and for the brief poem that accompanies it (below). The attendant Scripture texts are Genesis 3:19; Proverbs 12:11; 16:26; John 6:32-35 and 1 Peter 5:7.
Motto:
Seekest thou a path for bodily needs,
The Soul calls for Heavenly bread.
Poem:
The Child must learn a Trade;
So he can Support himself,
While passing through the world:
But if Virtue’s work is forgotten,
Then the Time is spent in vain,
And all things are done for naught.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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