The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 13, 2025

Madonna and Child in Glory

c. 1605–1617

Isaac Oliver

(French, c. 1565–1617)
England, 17th century
gouache and watercolor, heightened with gum arabic, with shell gold framing lines, on vellum, mounted on paper, vellum, and wood
Framed: 27.5 x 20.5 cm (10 13/16 x 8 1/16 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 2011.2
Location: Not on view

Description

It is difficult to overstate the singularity of this work in 17th-century England. While the image has visual sources in works by Rubens and Federico Barocci, surely known to the cosmopolitan artist (who travelled to Italy, unusually for English artists at this moment), the object is iconographically unique. Oliver places a tender Virgin and Child (itself more closely linked to Catholic instead of Protestant imagery), in a heavenly, visionary setting, and incorporates the medieval iconography of the lactating Virgin with the Salvator Mundi, early Netherlandish in origin, but more commonly an Italian typology by the early seventeenth century.
  • c.1602
    Possibly commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark (1574-1619), possibly by inheritance to her godson, Henry, 15th Earl of Arundel
    c. 1619
    Possibly Henry, 15th Earl of Arundel, by gift to his son Henry Howard
    1653
    Henry Howard, 1628-1684, and his wife Lady Anne Mary Howard, 1631 - 1662
    -1944
    Private collection (sold, Christie's, London, July 21, 1944, lot 22, to A. Rofe
    1944
    A. Rofe (sold, Sotheby's, November 18, 1959, lot 16, through David Carritt to Max Aitken)
    1959
    Max Aitken, 1st Lord Beaverbrook, upon his death, transferred to the Beaverbrook Foundation
    1964
    Beaverbrook Foundation (unsold, Sotheby's, New York, January 26, 2011, lot 517)
    2011
    The Cleveland Museum of Art
    Possibly painted for Queen Anne of Denmark (1574-1619);
    possibly by descent to her godson Henry, 15th Earl of Arundel,
    by whom given to his son Henry Howard (1628-1684) and recorded in the collection of his wife Lady Anne Mary Howard (1631-1662) by 1653;
    sale, London, Christie's, 21 July 1944, lot 22;
    A. Rofe,
    his sale, London, Sotheby's, 18 November 1959, lot 16, to David Carritt on behalf of Max Aitken, 1st Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964);
    thence by descent to the present owner
  • Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. Cat. no. 7, pp. 55-61
    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. 196
    MacLeod, Catharine, et.al. Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures by Hilliard and Oliver. London: National Portrait Gallery, 2019. Reproduced: p. 211, fig. 71
  • Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 10, 2013-February 16, 2014).
  • {{cite web|title=Madonna and Child in Glory|url=false|author=Isaac Oliver|year=c. 1605–1617|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.2