Cleveland Museum of Art
Virgin Nursing the Christ Child
- Date
- c. 1370
- Medium
- painted limestone
- Culture
- France, Île de France
- Department
- Medieval Art
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 151826
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This sculpture of the Virgin Mary nursing the Christ child subtly emphasizes the intimate relationship between mother and child and brings the Son of God in his human existence closer to the viewer. The emotional interaction is characteristic of sculpture since the mid-1300s, especially in the circles close to the court of the French kings in Paris and Emperor Charles IV (reigned 1346–78) in Prague. These novel stylistic tendencies were possibly a reaction to the fear and uncertainty incurred by the first great plague wave in 1348. The back of this sculpture is unfinished since it would have originally been placed against a wall or pier.
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Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Provenance
- ?-1984: (Ellin Mitchell Works of Art, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art). | 1984-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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