The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Pigmented limestone sculpture of the Virgin Mary, a woman with light skin tone and red-blond wavy hair under a wrap and crown, nursing a baby Christ with the same skin tone and hair color. The Virgin is draped in red fabric falling in folds and uncovering her right breast from which baby Christ, nude save for a light cloth around his waist, nurses. The Virgin looks down and to our left.

Virgin Nursing the Christ Child

c. 1370

France, Île de France

painted limestone
Overall: 111 x 38.5 cm (43 11/16 x 15 3/16 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1984.157
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The back of this sculpture is unfinished since it would have originally been placed against a wall or pier.

Description

This sculpture of the Virgin Mary nursing the Christ child subtly emphasizes the intimate relationship between mother and child and brings the Son of God in his human existence closer to the viewer. The emotional interaction is characteristic of sculpture since the mid-1300s, especially in the circles close to the court of the French kings in Paris and Emperor Charles IV (reigned 1346–78) in Prague. These novel stylistic tendencies were possibly a reaction to the fear and uncertainty incurred by the first great plague wave in 1348.
  • ?-1984
    (Ellin Mitchell Works of Art, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art).
    1984-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1984." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 2 (1985). no. 115, p. 176 & 200 www.jstor.org
    Gillerman, Dorothy W., Joan A. Holladay, and Susan L. Ward. Gothic Sculpture in America. 1989. No. 232, pp. 314-15
    Lutz, Gerhard. “Art in the Time of the Black Death.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 1 (Winter 2021): 8. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 8 archive.org
    Lutz, Gerhard, and Elina Gertsman. Creation and (Re)birth. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2024. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 3, fig. 1
    "Permanent Collection Installations.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 3 (2024): 16-17. Reproduced: p. 16; Mentioned: p. 17 archive.org
  • Creation, Birth, and Rebirth. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 17, 2024-July 16, 2025).
    Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).
    Year in Review for 1984. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 3-May 5, 1985).
  • {{cite web|title=Virgin Nursing the Christ Child|url=false|author=|year=c. 1370|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1984.157