Figure of the Pietà

Cleveland Museum of Art

Figure of the Pietà

Joseph WillemsLinkedCulture matchlcp-ab7eaa7dcaa4

Date
c. 1761
Medium
Soft-paste porcelain, painted in enamels
Culture
England, London, Chelsea
Department
Decorative Art and Design
Institution
Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID
358303

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

The distinctively Roman Catholic subject of Mary cradling her son, the crucified Christ, suggests this figure was probably made for one of the aristocratic English families forced to practice their Catholicism in secret during the mid-1700s. Because of the laws banning Catholic worship in England, grand houses were often modified to include private chapels or rooms in private quarters where visiting priests delivered the sacraments in defiance of the laws favoring Protestant worship. A figure of this size and type likely would have served as an important devotional focal point within that context. Only three examples of this figure by the Chelsea Porcelain Factory are known to exist.

View at Cleveland Museum of Art ↗

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 codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.S5LjR5GRxR1NueB1.DVEtoahTojERzvJpZdmOhZU5LtHsKb8X1fZO62dT9snkjov-cmnQiKog1OfzBiG5EOZsBpgZ26yeiDNgvJqOyVscNp0VkZxW6kmje-VoPuN7TwbOo_gfC9DP-xCDapdHGZmikyN9fEcGeSAdZpiqYFmE8vWtk-V7YhWgosf-mMnrIHCeX21DmPRu-OuyrPdA90qabtn0rDJI22W6k-YRiKoeOInfIwhlFPXyu6LDYt66Db-C_8NKmweiChMETui8EP15S02sGhc1oYullImjYcdZ8qE_MSAL1vJSULOwBTR9ijsImgSee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.t0yPK_f_oUEahLMv.qkbO5v5iYO-Z8np_0CgCUpDeaQSHShuyNC6mVM-Oe30LK6LPwwY9wbt9W7ZK0ZclqiIHW_yE_I0R0Gr3q6hcc0iJciFZHSqxVpWf19q85FzA0F7RgSsnUSh4W5GqXR_TteT_e2ehP_-02EGdC3xdLSaC8vdYEeqqlHYoCmfLKL21xRVu1lgwN82RzPkjBXnh71QrkEsmub6rgKsy3Eqm1H9xc1mscIHCw0hYn4t5lR3rNKuoUQzi7Lz2F1VeTKICrTRHUVERkbSeC_MJQ16lYmGdunF9qRHuZZEEojOF
Open this page
See at Cleveland Museum of Art

Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Credit line
Museum purchase from various donors by exchange
Provenance
1991: (Christies, London, February 11, 1991, no. 90) | 1991: (Robert Williams, Winifred Williams, Ltd., London, 1991) | 1992-?: Private collector, Australia, 1992 | 2018: (E. & H. Manners,Ltd., London, 2018) | 2019-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Part of LinkedCulture topics

  • Representative object from the topic 18th Century European Porcelain Figures
    18th Century European Porcelain Figures

    These objects are decorative figural ceramics produced across Europe (Germany, England, France) during the 18th century, predominantly featuring musicians and social scenes rendered in porcelain and faience.

    76 objects from 4 institutions

  • Representative object from the topic 18th Century Porcelain Figurines
    18th Century Porcelain Figurines

    These objects are decorative ceramic figures and figure groups made from soft-paste or hard-paste porcelain during the 18th century, produced by major European porcelain factories including Meissen, Sèvres, Derby, Chelse

    413 objects from 4 institutions

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.