Virgin and Child (c. 1460): Artwork and History

Virgin and Child (c. 1460) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden (Netherlandish, c. 1399-1464).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This tender painting is an image type known as a Madonna lactans, which depicts the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Jesus, highlighting her role as nurturer and intercessor between the human and divine realms. To convey the close connection between mother and son, Rogier van der Weyden exploited the qualities of oil paint, a highly manipulable medium that can be blended while wet. This characteristic allows for realistic modeling through seamless transitions of light and shadow, seen most poignantly here in the slight indentations of Mary’s fingers in the infant’s skin where she supports him.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin and Child
• Date: c. 1460
• Artist attribution: Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden (Netherlandish, c. 1399-1464)
• Place of origin: Belgium
• Medium: Oil on panel
• Dimensions: 38.4 × 28.3 cm (15 1/8 × 11 1/8 in.); Framed: 45.8 × 34.3 × 5.1 cm (18 × 13 1/2 × 2 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1933.1052

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.