The Holy Family with Mary Magdalen (c. 1590–95): Art, History and Details

The Holy Family with Mary Magdalen (c. 1590–95) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is El Greco (Spanish, 1541–1614).

The work and its context

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

The seemingly weightless figures, the startling color combinations, and the moody, imprecise setting all show El Greco’s interest in conveying the intense spirituality of these figures rather than their concrete reality. Above all, the painting addresses Mary’s role as mediator between Christ and the viewer. She supports her son, but her faraway look indicates awareness of his fate. Mary feeds Jesus fruit held by Joseph that is full of symbolic meaning, with the apple representing the fall of man; cherries, the blood of Christ; peaches, salvation; and pears, the sweetness of Christ’s virtue.

Object facts

• Title: The Holy Family with Mary Magdalen
• Date: c. 1590–95
• Creator attribution: El Greco (Spanish, 1541–1614)
• Culture: Spain
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 160 x 131 x 7.5 cm (63 x 51 9/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 130 x 100 cm (51 3/16 x 39 3/8 in.)
• Collection: P - Spanish before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1926.247

A detail from the museum

The nearly levitating body of the Christ child further emphasizes the ethereal setting of the Holy Family.

Collection credit

Gift of the Friends of The Cleveland Museum of Art in memory of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• W. M. M. “‘The Holy Family,’ by El Greco.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 14, no. 1 (January 1927): 3–6.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928.
• Milliken, William. "Silver Jubilee Exhibition." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no.6 (June 1941): 88-108

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.