The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 6, 2022

Jonah Swallowed

AD 280–90

This object has related works. See The Good Shepherd; Jonah Praying; Jonah Under the Gourd Vine; Jonah Cast Up

late Roman, Asia Minor, early Christian, 3rd century

Marble

Overall: 50.4 x 15.5 x 26.9 cm (19 13/16 x 6 1/8 x 10 9/16 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1965.237

Location

104 Late Antiquity

Fun Fact

Although usually thought of as a whale, here the artist has depicted Jonah swallowed by a cetus, a large, monstrous sea creature.

Description

After disobeying the Lord’s command to proclaim judgment on the city of Nineveh, the Old Testament prophet Jonah was cast into the sea and swallowed by a sea monster. Here, the beast swallows Jonah headfirst.

Provenance
?-1965
(J.J. Klejman, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1965-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
"La Chronique Des Arts" Supplement a la Gazette des Beaux-Arts (October 1966). p. 8
"'Golden Anniversary' Acquisitions by the Cleveland Museum of Art." The Burlington Magazine 108, no. 764 (1966) p. 579, fig. 53 www.jstor.org
Burton, Richard "Fifty Years of the Cleveland Museum of Art: Some Golden Anniversary Acquisitions," The Connoisseur (October 1966). p. 129
"Art-The Cleveland Museum of Art's Golden Show" Newsweek (September 12, 1966). p. 98
"Sculpture-Jonah and the Shepherd" Time (September 21, 1966). p. 57
"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, January-March, 1966" The Art Quarterly XXIX, no. 2 (1966). p. 173, no. 2
"Early Christian Sculptures at Cleveland." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54, no. 3 (1967). pp. 67-88 www.jstor.org
"Ancient Art - Byzantine, "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, October - December, 1966" The Art Quarterly XXX (Spring 1967). p. 67
Cleveland Museum of Art. Selected Works: Cleveland Museum of Art. 1967. no. 78
Du Bourguet, Pierre. Early Christian art. New York: Reynal, 1971. p. 106
Cooper, Barbara, and Maureen Matheson. The World Museums Guide. London: Threshold, 1973. p. 78
Gough, Michael. The Origins of Christian Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973. p. 38, pl. 36
Kitzinger, Ernst. Byzantine Art in the Making: Main Lines of Stylistic Development in Mediterranean Art, 3rd-7th Century. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1977. pp. 20-21, pl. 30, 32, 48
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Margaret English Frazer, and Kurt Weitzmann. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art Third to Seventh Century. New York: The Museum, 1977. pp. 407-411 books.google.com
Vyverberg, Henry. The Living Tradition: Art, Music, and Ideas in the Western World. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. p. 30
Kitzinger, Ernst. 1978. "The Cleveland Marbles". I Monumenti Cristiani Preconstantiniani. 653-675.
Vermeule, Cornelius C. Greek and Roman Sculpture in America: Masterpieces in Public Collections in the United States and Canada. Malibu, Calif: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1981. pp. 224-29, no. 189
Das Münster, Heft 1, Jahrgang XXXV (1982). p. 47
Gudrun Domolka-Fuchs, "Eine Beinschnitzerei mit Joanasdarstellung aus dem Limeskastell Iatrus bei Krivina (Nordbulgarien)." Forshungen und Berichte no. 22 (1982). p. 201
Kyūyaku Seisyo. Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1984. pl. 53, p. 55
McColl, Donald Alexander. Early Christian Sculptures at Cleveland in Their Eastern Mediterranean Context. 1991.
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 14 archive.org
Dresken-Weiland, Jutta. Reliefierte Tischplatten aus theodosianischer Zeit. Città del Vaticano: Pontificio Istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1991. pp. 156, 158
May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. p. 116
Lehman, Karen M. " Sacred and Profane Hellenizing Marbles of the Late Third Century Roman Empire: Secular Portraits and Religious Narrative Sculptures in the Cleveland Museum of Art Reviewed in the Cultural Context." M.A. thesis, Kent State University, 2004. Mnetined: p. v; Reproduced: p.106, fig. 23
Stokstad, Marilyn. Medieval Art. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 2004. p. 116
Stokstad, Marilyn, David Cateforis, and Stephen Addiss. Art History. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2005. fig. 7-7
Sawyer, John F. A. The Blackwell Companion to Bible and Culture. 2006. p. 301, fig. 18.1a
Eikelmann, Renate, Holger A. Klein, Stephen N. Fliegel, and Virginia Brilliant. The Cleveland Museum of Art: Meisterwerke von 300 bis 1550. München: Hirmer, 2007. p. 28, 30, no. 1
Cleveland Museum of Art, and Holger A. Klein. Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 34-37, no. 1
Sawyer, John F. A. The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. p.301, fig. 18.1a
Fliegel, Stephen N., and Stephen N. Fliegel. A Higher Contemplation: Sacred Meaning in the Christian Art of the Middle Ages. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2012. p. 20, fig. 17
Cleveland Museum of Art, David Franklin, and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. p. 20, fig. 14
Eastmond, Antony. The Glory of Byzantium and Early Christendom. 2013. p. 16, figs. 3 & 4
Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 260
Meyer, Mati. Omanut yeme ha-benayim be-Eropah uba-biznaṭyon. Raʻananah: ha-Universiṭah ha-petuḥah, 2017. Reproduced: p. 69, #26
Hornik, Heidi J. "Freestanding Sculpture." In The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art.Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen and Mark D. Ellison, editors. Abingdon Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. Reproduced: p. 74, fig. 5.1
Rumscheid, Frank, Sabine Schrenk and Kornelia Kressirer. Göttliche Ungerechtigkeit?: Strafen und Glaubensprüfungen als Themen antiker und frühchristlicher Kunst. Petersberg: Dr. M. Imhof, 2018. Reproduced: p. 300; IV.2.3 Abb. 4 -6;Kat. 3
Exhibition history

Golden Anniversary of Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (September 10-October 16, 1966).

Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. National Museum of Bavaria, Munich, Germany (May 10-September 16, 2007); J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (October 30, 2007-January 20, 2008); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (February 13-June 7, 2009).

Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, Wonders. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 7-October 6, 2019).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1965.237