Virgin and Child

Also known as: Madonna and Child

About the Artwork

This statue is a scaled-down version of a marble figure the sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino carved for the funerary monument of a nobleman in Verona, Italy. Balancing the stable mass of the Virgin with the seemingly weightless, elongated child draped gracefully across her torso, the composition illustrates Sansovino’s skill. After training in Florence, he relocated to Rome before eventually settling in Venice in 1527. Sansovino contributed significantly to public and private projects across the region, from important civic buildings and tomb sculpture to intimately scaled bronzes, such as this example from his early Venetian period.

Inscriptions

inscribed across the front of the base: IACOBVS SANSOV.

Provenance

Possibly Otto O'Meara (St. Petersburg, Russia) The Hermitage (Leningrad, USSR) Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemiza, 1875-1947 (Lugano, Switzerland) Adolph Loewi (Los Angeles, California), sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.

Exhibition history

Art: The International Language. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 2-November 4, 1956). The Venetian Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (November 8, 1956-January 1, 1957). Art and Humanism in the Renaissance. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 23-February 25, 1962). The Italian Heritage; an exhibition of works of art lent from American collections for the benefit of the Committee to Rescue Italian Art (CRIA). Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY (organizer) (May 17-August 29, 1967). Florence and the Arts: Five Centuries of Patronage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 13-September 19, 1971). Antiquity in the Renaissance. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA (organizer) (April 6-June 6, 1978). In the Light of Apollo - Italian Renaissance and Greece. National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens, Greece (organizer) (December 10, 2003-April 19, 2004).

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

Quick Overview

Artist: Jacopo Sansovino (Italian, 1486–1570)
Date: early 1530s
Medium: bronze
Dimensions: Overall: 47.6 x 17.2 x 11.5 cm (18 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 in.)
Type: Sculpture
Classification: Sculpture
Department: European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line: John L. Severance Fund
Accession no.: 1951.316

Open-access museum record · AT-00010642