Enthroned St. Joseph with Toddler Christ Child

This detail from a late 19th-century Eastern European devotional print depicts St. Joseph seated on a golden throne with the Christ Child as a toddler standing on his knee. The Christ Child raises his right hand in blessing and holds a spray of lilies symbolizing purity in his left. St. Joseph’s hands encircle the toddler protectively as a visual metaphor for his role as protector of The Church. + St. Joseph is garbed in a blue-violet robe shaded in reddish-purple and a brown mantle highlighted in shades of yellow-orange; the Christ Child, a white tunic with yellow trim. + Not visible here are the two small angels dressed in complementary red and green dalmatics who present St. Joseph with an architectural maquette or miniaturized model of the Vatican symbolizing The Church, the object of his patronage. + Principal Feast of St. Joseph: March 19; Feast of St. Joseph the Worker: May 1 + Image Credit (M 037): Detail of an antique image of Saint Joseph [Svatý-Josef], originally printed in chromolithography by Koppe Bellmann, Prague, Czechoslovakia (now The Czech Republic), late 19th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.