Madonna and Child in Glory
c. 1605–1617
Medium
gouache and watercolor, heightened with gum arabic, with shell gold framing lines, on vellum, mounted on paper, vellum, and wood
Dimensions
27.5 × 20.5 cm
Classification
Portrait Miniature
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Accession Number
2011.2
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
About this artwork
It is difficult to overstate the singularity of this work in 17th-century England. While the image has visual sources in works by Rubens and Federico Barocci, surely known to the cosmopolitan artist (who travelled to Italy, unusually for English artists at this moment), the object is iconographically unique. Oliver places a tender Virgin and Child (itself more closely linked to Catholic instead of Protestant imagery), in a heavenly, visionary setting, and incorporates the medieval iconography of...