Virgin and Child with Saints (c. 1510): Art, History and Details

Virgin and Child with Saints (c. 1510) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

What are some of the key steps in conserving this picture? While it may seem disturbing, the condition of this work is not unusual for a 16th-century panel painting. Treatment was abandoned decades ago when the conservator who was cleaning the work left the museum. Brilliant colors and beautiful original passages remain, including expressive folds of red drapery and delicate flesh tones. New technical research could tell us more about how the panel was painted and subsequently treated. Identifying the artist is another key step that would help conservators reconstruct distinctive passages like hands and facial features. A painting by Francesco Bissolo in Munich (below) is closely related in subject and style and may provide some clues.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin and Child with Saints
• Date: c. 1510
• Culture: Italy, Venice
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 109.5 x 149.9 x 9.5 cm (43 1/8 x 59 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 77.8 x 118.7 cm (30 5/8 x 46 3/4 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 16th & 17th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1916.796

A detail from the museum

The Virgin Mary is often depicted wearing blue and red, symbolizing her purity and devotion.

Collection credit

Holden Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollenden Gallery, James Jackson Jarves, and Liberty Emery Holden. Handbook for Visitors to the Hollenden Gallery of Masters: Exhibited at the Boston Foreign Art Exhibition in 1883-4. S.l: J.J. Jarves, 1883.
• Thieme, Ulrich, Felix Becker, Fred. C. Willis, and Hans Vollmer. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig, Germany: W. Engelmann, 1907.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982.

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.