Cleveland Museum of Art

Charity

Date

c. 1590

Medium

oil on wood

Culture

Netherlands, late 16th Century

Department

European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Abraham Bloemaert drew on traditional depictions of the Virgin and Child for this allegorical image of Charity: a woman surrounded by children, one an infant for whom she has bared her breast. Bloemaert was one of the leading proponents of the Mannerist style in the Northern Netherlands. Characteristics of that style include exaggerated figural proportions, contorted poses, heightened colors, densely packed compositions, and a deliberate eroticism—invoked here to emphasize the magnetic quality of Charity’s serene beauty. Charity is almost always personified as a woman with children.

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