Sleeping Christ Child (c. 1675): Art, History and Details

Sleeping Christ Child (c. 1675) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Filippo Parodi (Italian, 1630–1702).

The work and its context

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

Christ—no longer an infant, but a young child—sprawls on a bed of straw, his head thrown back in slumber and his right arm dangling. The simple radiance framing his head indicates his divinity. Representations of the sleeping Christ child were enduringly popular, not only because of the subject’s inherent charm, but sleep, as a metaphor for death, encouraged pious Christians to meditate on Christ’s humanity and his eventual suffering and death. Filippo Parodi’s Sleeping Christ Child beguiles with lifelike detail. Parodi used varying degrees of polish to differentiate surface textures: Christ’s body is burnished to a soft gleam, while his hair and the straw are more roughly carved, absorbing rather than reflecting the light. Parodi exploited the sensuous and tactile possibilities of the marble to enhance the emotional impact of his piece, a tactic learned from the master of Italian Baroque sculpture, Gianlorenzo Bernini.

Object facts

• Title: Sleeping Christ Child
• Date: c. 1675
• Creator attribution: Filippo Parodi (Italian, 1630–1702)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: marble
• Dimensions: 63 x 102 x 42 cm (24 13/16 x 40 3/16 x 16 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2018.257

A detail from the museum

Tender images of the Christ child sleeping encouraged devout Christians to meditate on Christ’s humanity.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Soprani, Raffaele, and Carlo Giuseppe Ratti. Vite de' pittori, scultori, ed architetti genovesi. 2 vols. Genova: Nella stamperia Casamara, 1768–9.
• Palais du Duc de Brabant, Brussels. Exposition de tableaux et d'objets d'art et de haute curiosité ouverte au profit des pauvres, seconde partie: objets d'art. Brussels: G. Stapleaux, 1855.
• Rotondi Briasco, Paola. Filippo Parodi. Genova: Istituto di Storia dell'Arte, Università, 1962.

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.