Jesse (c. 1500): Art, History and Details

Jesse (c. 1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Veit Stoss (German, c. 1445–1533).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The figure shows the sleeping Jesse, the father of David from the Old Testament. As the ancestor of the family tree of Christ, he was depicted in the Middle Ages sleeping as the starting point of the tree, on whose branches the ancestors of Christ are depicted. Mary with the Christ child is always shown at the top. The figure comes from a wooden altarpiece from an unknown church, possibly in Nuremberg, which is now lost. Veit Stoss is one of the most prominent German sculptors around 1500 who was mainly active in Nuremberg (Bavaria, Germany) and Krakow (Poland), also as a painter and engraver.

Object facts

• Title: Jesse
• Date: c. 1500
• Creator attribution: Veit Stoss (German, c. 1445–1533)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Limewood, polychromed
• Dimensions: Overall: 38.5 x 98 x 26.5 cm (15 3/16 x 38 9/16 x 10 7/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2023.156

A detail from the museum

The family tree of Christ starts from Jesse, the father of David in the Old Testament.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lutz, Gerhard. “Veit Stoss's Jesse: Sleep and consciousness in a medieval sculpture.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 3 (2024): 26.
• "Permanent Collection Installations.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 66, no. 3 (2026): 14-15.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.