Virgin and Child

The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Virgin and Child as sculpture (Italy · early 1530s).

WHY IT’S INTERESTING

Sansovino's signature on the base—uncommon for bronzes of this period—marks this as a work of particular importance.

SERENDIPITYA little unexpected

FamiliarWeird

A CLOSER LOOK

The museum identifies this sculpture as bronze and credits Jacopo Sansovino (Italian, 1486–1570).

The museum's collection notes: This statue is a scaled-down version of a marble figure the sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino carved for the funerary monument of a nobleman in Verona, Italy. Balancing the stable mass of the Virgin with the seemingly weightless, elongated child draped gracefully across her torso, the composition illustrates Sansovino’s skill. After training in Florence, he relocated to Rome before eventually settling in Venice in 1527. Sansovino contributed significantly to public and private projects across the region, from important civic buildings and tomb sculpture to intimately scaled bronzes, such as this example from his early Venetian period.

FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE

The Cleveland Museum of ArtVirgin and Child

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