Virgin and Child (late 1200s): Art, History and Details

Virgin and Child (late 1200s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This sculpture is a rare survival in wood from the valley of the Meuse River (modern Belgium and Holland), an important region for the production of ecclesiastical art in the 1100s and 1200s. The elegantly draped figure is remarkable for the preservation of much of its original paint and gilding, including the Virgin's gilded mantle highlighted with decorative bands of geometric patterns and the green dragon on which she stands. There are small settings around the Virgin's neck and along the border of the mantle that would have originally been set with gem and glass cabochons in imitation of the richly adorned metalwork for which Mosan art was highly esteemed. The settings for these cabochons provide some hint of the original opulence of this sculpture. The Virgin's serene features and beautiful countenance are noteworthy, as is the refined execution of the draperies.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin and Child
• Date: late 1200s
• Culture: Mosan (Valley of the Meuse), Liège(?), late 13th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: wood (oak) with polychromy and gilding
• Dimensions: Overall: 83 x 24 x 20 cm (32 11/16 x 9 7/16 x 7 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Medieval Art
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2014.392

A detail from the museum

Dragons, like the one Mary is standing on, sometimes look more like snakes in medieval art.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Bonnet Saint-Georges, Bénédicte "Une Vierge mosane pour le musée de Cleveland" La Tribune de l'Art (December 21, 2014).
• Litt, Steven "Rare Sculpture is Among New Pieces" The Cleveland Plain Dealer (December 21, 2014).
• Fliegel, Stephen N. “Acquisition Highlights 2014: Medieval Art.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 55, no. 2 (March/April 2015): 14-15.

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.