Getty Museum
The Holy Family
Creator
Gerard DavidIlluminator · 1455–1523
All works by this person →Considered one of the last major fifteenth-century Bruges painters, Gerard David navigated political upheaval and economic disruption to forge a highly successful career. His rich palette, descriptive brushwork, and sensitive revisions of poplar subjects influenced contemporaries and early sixteenth century followers. According to his epitaph in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, David was born in
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1520
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Culture
- Netherlandish
- Department
- Paintings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 8f32da63-672d-47e7-aefe-13e3de314937
From the Getty Museum record
The Virgin and Child tenderly embrace as Joseph looks on from behind. The Virgin holds her son tightly, one hand on his chest and the other around his torso, her fingers pressing into his flesh. Christ clasps an unblemished apple in his left hand, a symbol of his role as “the new Adam.” Joseph holds a wooden bowl with a lid that keeps the porridge-like milk warm for the child. Two decaying apples – an exquisitely observed still life element and a stark allusion to the future passion of Christ—sit atop the lid. In a strategic appeal to patrons in the dynamic Antwerp art market, David addressed the taste for quotidian subjects by placing the holy family in a contemporary Netherlandish interior with a view over a verdant hilly landscape dominated by a castle.
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