Raising of Jairus' daughter

The raising of Jairus's daughter — Christ restoring the twelve-year-old girl to life at her father's plea — was among the Gospel miracles most frequently represented in Baroque religious painting for its combination of faith, grief, and redemptive reversal. De La Fosse's 1680 version approaches the scene with the warmth and psychological sensitivity characteristic of his best religious work. The moment depicted in most treatments is the threshold instant when death yields to life — the girl's eyes beginning to open, the father's disbelief turning to wonder, the disciples' solemn attention. De La Fosse's training in Rome, where he studied Raphael and the antique, gave him compositional authority, while his Venetian studies supplied the warmth of tone that the subject's tenderness required. This canvas was placed in the care of a conservation body for religious and civic works of art.

The figure of the recumbent girl creates a strong horizontal accent against which the vertical figures of Christ and the lamenting family play. Light falls with deliberate warmth on the girl's recovering form. De La Fosse's brushwork in the bedding and draperies is soft and painterly, supporting the mood of quiet miracle.