Madonna Nursing the Christ Child
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1617–1682)
c. 1670–72
- Medium
- pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over red and black chalk, with traces of white; framing lines in pen and brown ink
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 21.4 x 15.4 cm (8 7/16 x 6 1/16 in.); Secondary Support: 24.1 x 18.5 cm (9 1/2 x 7 5/16 in.)
- Culture
- Spain
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection
- 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
One of the finest of the rare drawings by Murillo, this sheet is a study for Virgin and Child, commissioned for the family chapel of the Marques de Santiago in Madrid and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Prized today for their dynamism, Murillo’s drawings served the practical purpose of working out the positions of the figures. Here, the artist suggested the tender bond between mother and child with the poignant connection of their gazes. His animated line and zigzag hatching create the feeling of incessant motion while the addition of ink wash creates deep shadows across the forms.
