Virgin and Child (c. 1315–20): Art, History and Details

Virgin and Child (c. 1315–20) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This graceful Virgin and child is a beautiful example from a large number of such figures produced in Lorraine, in eastern France, during the early 1300s. Lorraine at the time had a well-established artistic tradition and was under the rule of the Counts of Bar with established cultural links to both Flanders and England. Many of the surviving Lorraine Virgins share common characteristics consistent with this example--the swaying posture, with the weight of the Virgin placed on the left foot; and an open mantle with an exposed belted gown, the girdle itself trailing to the ground and ornamented with rosettes. Such standing figures were likely made for use in parish churches, cathedrals, aristocratic oratories, and monastic chapels, and attest to the intense veneration rendered to the Virgin during the period.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin and Child
• Date: c. 1315–20
• Culture: France, Lorraine
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: limestone with traces of polychromy and gilding
• Dimensions: Overall: 75.9 x 28 cm (29 7/8 x 11 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1974.14

A detail from the museum

The CMA has a rare example of a similar woman’s belt (1930.742).

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Wixom, William D. “A Gothic Madonna from Lorraine.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 10 (December 1974): 343–349.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• De Winter, Patrick M. “Visions of the Apocalypse in Medieval England and France.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 10 (December 1983): 396–417.

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.