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Madonna and Child
Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, born Siegen, Germany 1577-died Antwerp, Belgium 1640)
ca. 1615-1618
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 41 5/8 x 29 1/8 in. (105.7 x 73.9 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
This image of the Virgin Mary and Jesus is a version of one that appears in a Rubens triptych commissioned around 1617 for the Antwerp Cathedral. In this tender scene, Mary gently touches the child’s foot with her right hand and balances him with her left hand, as if helping him to take his first step. The focus is more on Christ’s humanity than his divinity. The painting entered the National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum) from the collection of John Gellatly, a prominent collector of American and European art. Gellatly felt that American artists were the equal of any “old master,” and his many European works were meant to be an example and an encouragement to this country’s painters.
