The Virgin and Child Seated by the Wall

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Virgin and Child Seated by the Wall

Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

The Virgin in this small engraving appears monumental against a contemporary view of Nuremberg castle. Although she looks regal, Dürer underscores her humanity by presenting her in this modern context and by adding commonplace household keys and a money purse at her waist. As she sits serenely, the Christ Child displays an apple to the viewer as a reminder of the past, specifically the Fall of man and his divine role in the redemption of humanity. The arrangement and introspective character of this engraving have been compared to Dürer’s Melencolia I . Both were finished in the same year as his mother’s death—a difficult time for the artist. As the third of 18 children, of which only three reached adulthood, Dürer witnessed the particular joys and heartache of motherhood.

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record

Medium
engraving
Credit Line
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland by exchange, and purchase from the Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Type of artwork
Print
Department
Prints

Also in Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. The museum’s own label for these fields has not been confirmed yet, so each is named by its field in the museum’s data.

creation_date
1514

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

From LinkedCulture

In this 1514 engraving by Albrecht Dürer, the Virgin Mary sits against a stone wall with the towers of Nuremberg castle rising behind her, household keys and a money purse hanging plainly at her waist. The Christ Child reaches out to offer an apple to the viewer, a quiet reminder of the Fall and humanity's need for redemption. Dürer finished this print the same year as his mother's death, and the same year as his Melencolia I, giving this small, precise work a tenderness that lifts it beyond a standard devotional image.

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 cradles a child in her arms while kneeling on a stone step.

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.

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The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.3V0iVZAjgyXWcjxH.8xv_VILkr9OzHKAdotvoiBJXq1rNafqsT84z1TN5Ulq580iWiDZLyKf25FOw_8Ou8xDEX7DsQ4xJzrUGM_phaoH3sagxeW-S79XGkJNLEEx5i_g4_k8cq6r2W7mlAlqh_EJN_nIWNkq_LoTUq1FULFRjyN1OEDz67fIgn-blbUZH2RZ6mYuFtyMQdpTxIUfLogYlpGUnruMARku1LKWbgLhVhzg2msVbjATi86Ib7ndBvjp1RVbnHUe_i7TkSENPQj7uB9IbRvQixFUJP9DnQblZm3TTxO9IBSsgfxTEOebPFJT0vwSee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.wAOcXCAor7_VFKEJ.OxHLh6HmHVAnqCZWhJr33_J5B_NbH-erayzZf8IKdzswdcwlAYMtfZpRfB1a8hKzHdmENuPOrAweXPhqTCgYkATibTXIo13Zp5uYWmJ9cKpkA4-KJ2oJAPd8v5DmvpjpQB84Vxbk53qN4NpYKnbxdIXr4toPun3xbU3Zp3yECGiS2F9VWgG-Xn5AUIgCdT0bw4imXD3jyeIKWulmrrmzteYaXxx_Byhlm-Mhu5pCKMSg5m3Kal6xJoJFaAVz1E0qoCheKjsAVKpCX5e_JNV5rvC7SBz6cykmruIEbsj9
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How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Cleveland Museum of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
149075
Object Type
Print
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Type of artwork” · copied as is
Creator
Albrecht Dürer
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creators (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Artist-role creator's description with life dates removed.
Culture
Germany, late 15th-early 16th century
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
engraving
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Medium” · copied as is · Cleveland's 'technique' field holds materials.
Department
Prints
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Tags
  • male
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field artists_tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
Credit Line
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland by exchange, and purchase from the Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Credit Line” · copied as is
Date
1514
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
Begin Year
1514
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_earliest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
End Year
1514
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_latest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

LinkedCulture video

The Virgin and Child Seated by the Wall

Aug 8, 2026 · Short

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Museum record

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