Holy Family (c. 1450): Artwork and History

Holy Family (c. 1450) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as South German.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This view of the Holy Family in an interior is filled with the trappings of a comfortable bourgeois existence. Its unknown maker was probably working from a repertory of pattern drawings derived from the most innovative Netherlandish painters of the early 15th century, Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. The pose of the Virgin and the buffet with its brass and pewter vessels are particularly indebted to their work. At the same time, the painting’s dry style and its use of a spruce rather than an oak panel for the support are indications that it was made in Southern Germany.

Object facts

• Title: Holy Family
• Date: c. 1450
• Artist attribution: South German
• Place of origin: Southern Germany
• Medium: Oil on panel
• Dimensions: 50.2 × 47.8 cm (19 3/4 × 18 3/4 in.); Framed: 59.7 × 59.1 cm (23 1/2 × 23 1/4 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1933.1044

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.