Virgin and Child (c. 1470–80): Art, History and Details

Virgin and Child (c. 1470–80) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hans Memling (Netherlandish, 1494).

The work and its context

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

This small panel was once part of a devotional portrait diptych (a hinged two-panel painting). The Christ child’s attention seems drawn to something outside the picture and lifts his hand in recognition. The opposing panel, once hinged on the right, would have featured a portrait of its original owner in prayer, now unfortunately lost. Such devotional portrait diptychs were popular after 1400 and remained so until their production ceased around the 1530s. Used in private chapels or within the curtain folds of four-poster beds, they could easily be closed when not in use. Hans Memling was born near Frankfurt, Germany. He settled in Bruges around 1465 where he developed a reputation for his painting skills, and provided works to the Burgundian court, which likely cultivated the taste for small portrait diptychs. This example seems to have been painted by a member of Memling’s workshop, perhaps for a wealthy merchant or clergyman.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin and Child
• Date: c. 1470–80
• Creator attribution: Hans Memling (Netherlandish, 1494)
• Culture: Flanders, Bruges
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 41.3 x 31.4 x 4.1 cm (16 1/4 x 12 3/8 x 1 5/8 in.); Unframed: 31.5 x 22 cm (12 3/8 x 8 11/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Medieval Art
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1934.29

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "A Madonna and Child by Hans Memling." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 21, no. 9 (November 1934): 139-144
• Toledo Museum of Art. French and Flemish Primitive Exhibition: Catalogue. Toledo: The Museum, 1935.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Catalogue of the Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition : June Twenty-Sixth to October Fourth 1936. [Cleveland, Ohio]: [Cleveland Museum of Art], 1936.

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.