The Infants Jesus Christ and Saint John the Baptist Embracing

Joos van Cleve (Workshop of Joos van Cleve (Netherlandish, Active by 1507–1540/41))

1520–25

Medium
Oil on panel
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
74.7 × 57.6 cm (29 7/16 × 22 11/16 in.); Framed: 87 × 70.9 × 6.4 cm (34 1/4 × 27 7/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
Culture
Holland
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line
Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Adult profiles and older: its museum's description or title mentions nudity. How works are placed

View at the Art Institute of Chicago

About this work

Joos van Cleve sold many versions of this painting to an international clientele eager for luxury goods. To suit the taste of his customers, Van Cleve learned to adapt the ideal forms of the Italian Renaissance to a Northern European context. Here, the poses and modeling of the intertwined children are indebted to the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci, while the elaborate metalwork accents and costly materials comprising the architec- ture are characteristic of Northern European art. This particular painting includes the arms of its first owner— Pompejus Occo, the Amsterdam representative of the powerful German banking firm of Fugger—along the upper edge.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0