Cleveland Museum of Art
The Virgin and Child on a Grassy Bench
Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5
- Date
- 1503
- Medium
- engraving
- Culture
- Germany, early 16th Century
- Department
- Prints
- Institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Object ID
- 114734
From LinkedCulture
In 1503, Albrecht Dürer pressed a burin into copper and captured something almost impossible in metal, a mother's genuine tenderness. The Virgin sits on a grassy mound, nursing the Christ Child, their small hands meeting at the center of the composition in a moment that feels completely natural. Behind them, a bare dead tree and a goldfinch perched on the trellis quietly signal the suffering ahead. That contrast between intimate warmth and inevitable loss is what makes this engraving one of Dürer's most quietly powerful works.
Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.
What the image shows
A woman in a flowing robe sits on the ground, holding a small object.
Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.
From the Cleveland Museum of Art record
This simple and intimate scene of the Virgin nursing the Christ Child is among Dürer’s most tender depictions of the subject. With affectionate devotion the Virgin cradles the infant in a warm embrace, providing protection and essential nourishment. The gentle play of hands at the center of the composition adds to the naturalism of the scene and captures the universal bond between a mother and her child. The dead tree and the goldfinch resting on the trellis behind them allude to Jesus’s inevitable Passion, making this private moment all the more meaningful.
The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.