The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth (c. 1503): Art, History and Details

The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth (c. 1503) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jacopo de' Barbari (Italian, c. 1460/70–c. 1516).

The work and its context

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

While this landscape might seem desolate and strange, it is rife with religious symbolism. The Virgin Mary and Christ on the right sit with Mary’s cousin, Saint Elizabeth, and her son, Saint John the Baptist. The Bible describes Elizabeth as past childbearing age; both she and Mary were granted virgin births by God. The barren trees, therefore, signify Elizabeth’s infertility, while the fencelike enclosure denotes the enclosed garden of virginity. The trees also remind viewers of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. Jacopo de’ Barbari placed lively grapevines on the dying trees, a metaphor for Christ.

Object facts

• Title: The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth
• Date: c. 1503
• Creator attribution: Jacopo de' Barbari (Italian, c. 1460/70–c. 1516)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Platemark: 12.8 x 16.3 cm (5 1/16 x 6 7/16 in.); Sheet: 13.3 x 16.6 cm (5 1/4 x 6 9/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1930.575

A detail from the museum

Before scholars identified all the works of Jacopo de' Barbari by name, he was called "Master of the Caduceus" for the symbol of a Mercury's staff with which he often signed his prints, seen here at lower right.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Three Engravings by Jacopo De'Barbari." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 18, no. 7 (July 1931): 144-147

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.