The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 22, 2025
Jesse
c. 1500
sculptor
(German, c. 1445–1533)
Overall: 38.5 x 98 x 26.5 cm (15 3/16 x 38 9/16 x 10 7/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2023.156
Location: 111 German and Austrian Gothic
Did You Know?
The family tree of Christ starts from Jesse, the father of David in the Old Testament.Description
The figure shows the sleeping Jesse, the father of David from the Old Testament. As the ancestor of the family tree of Christ, he was depicted in the Middle Ages sleeping as the starting point of the tree, on whose branches the ancestors of Christ are depicted. Mary with the Christ child is always shown at the top. The figure comes from a wooden altarpiece from an unknown church, possibly in Nuremberg, which is now lost.Veit Stoss is one of the most prominent German sculptors around 1500 who was mainly active in Nuremberg (Bavaria, Germany) and Krakow (Poland), also as a painter and engraver.
- c. 1812/13Oettingen-Wallerstein Collection (Maihingen, Harburg Castle, Bavaria, Germany)c. 2013Rudigier Art Dealer, London, England
- Lutz, Gerhard. “Veit Stoss's Jesse: Sleep and consciousness in a medieval sculpture.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 3 (2024): 26. Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 26 archive.org
- {{cite web|title=Jesse|url=false|author=Veit Stoss|year=c. 1500|access-date=22 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2023.156