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The Holy Family

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The Holy Family

circa 1520
oil on panel
29 1/4 x 22 in. (74 x 56 cm)
Currier Funds, 1956.5

Joos van Cleve
Flemish
1485–1540

ON VIEW

Description

Joos van Cleve’s Holy Family is set in a domestic space among everyday objects. Mary and the naked Jesus cradled in her arms are both shown with halos, distinguishing their divine status from Joseph’s role as Jesus’s earthly father. In contrast to the ruddy, suntanned Joseph, the mother and child have delicate features and porcelain-white skin. Jesus fingers a string of yellow beads around his neck. Mary wears a blue dress underneath a red robe trimmed with fur. Her hair is covered by a transparent veil. The three figures are compressed into a shallow space, bounded by a table containing household objects in the foreground and a bird’s-eye view of a lush, mountainous landscape in the background. Mary and Jesus dominate the composition, while Joseph stands behind them, reading the text (legible to the viewer) of the Magnificat, a Marian hymn. The table in front of them is covered with green fabric and displays a still-life ensemble of several items: a folded, embroidered white cloth, half a lemon with the tip of a knife resting on it, a single lemon wedge, three miniature pincushions shaped like flowers, and a glass vessel containing red wine.


Context and Analysis

Although the Holy Family was a popular subject in early Netherlandish painting, Joos transformed it from a narrative context, as in the Nativity, and turned it into an ordinary scene of domestic life. Many variations of this theme were produced by Joos and members of his Antwerp workshop in the first decades of the 1500s. The hybrid nature of these works, which combined a devotional image, a domestic interior, and still-life objects, must have appealed to clients throughout Europe, who purchased them on the open market. Joos was also known for his skillful integration of Italian and Netherlandish artistic styles. The intense realism and painstaking detail of the objects on the tabletop, as well as the careful rendering of different surfaces and light effects, are characteristically Northern European, while the modeling of the figures and the Christ child’s pose reflect earlier Italian works.

In addition to its complex mixing of different artistic styles and pictorial effects, this painting also features an intricate visual language of motifs referring to the lives of Mary and Jesus. Viewers in the 1500s would have been attuned to the symbolic meaning of the objects portrayed. For example, the glass decanter signifies Mary’s purity, the red wine is a symbol of the Eucharist, and the embroidered cloth and pincushions have been associated with Mary’s domestic skills and her role as “handmaiden of the Lord.” 1

Written by Nadia Baadj

Notes

1 Hand 2004, 88.

Bibliography

Hand, John Oliver. Joos Van Cleve: The Complete Paintings. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004, 84–88, 152.

Hand, John Oliver. “Joos van Cleve, The Holy Family.” Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin (Fall 1989): 4–25.

“Joos van Cleve’s Holy Family.” Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin (December 1956).

Van den Brink, Peter, and others. Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens. Exh. cat. Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen. Stuttgart: Belser, 2011.


Exhibition
1892 Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, England, no. 47.

1893 Burlington House, London, England, no. 169.

1899-1900 London, England, "New Gallery Winter Exhibition." no. 75.

1904 Dusseldorf, Kunsthistorische Ausstellung, no. 57A (not in catalogue)

1921-1922 Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, England, no. 14.

1932 British Antique Dealers Association, Christies, London, England, no. 1357.

1936 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, "Tentoonstelling van oude Kunst." no. 30.

1961 New York, no. 9.

2006-2007 Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, Extended Loan of European and American Paintings. Aug. 2006 - Nov. 2007.

2011 Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen, Germany, "Leonardo of the North - Joos van Cleve (1485/90 - 1541)." March 17 - June 26.

Provenance
Robert Stayner Holford (d. 1892)
Inherited by his son, Sir Geroge Lindsay Holdford
Chirstie's, London, lot 8, May 17-18, 1928
Purchased by Frank T. Sabin
Private Collection
Schaeffer Galleries, New York, NY
Purchased by Currier Gallery of Art, 1956


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