Christ and the Virgin in the House at Nazareth
Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664)
c. 1640
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 201 x 256 x 10 cm (79 1/8 x 100 13/16 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 165 x 218.2 cm (64 15/16 x 85 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Spain
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Stories of Christ’s childhood and adolescence became increasingly popular during the Counter-Reformation because they were easily understood by a broad public. Rather than taking a story from the Bible, Zurbarán appears to have invented this subject, in which Jesus pricks himself on a crown of thorns he is weaving, foretelling his later torment at the Crucifixion. Despite the grand scale and monumental figures, the work has remarkable intimacy and quietness, emphasizing such details as the Virgin’s tears.
