Virgin and Child
Lucas Cranach the Elder
c.c.1515 - 1520
In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, numerous pictures were made of the Virgin and her child Jesus. This Madonna is by the German artist Lucas Cranach. He painted her with a beautiful, round idealised face and long wavy hair. She is looking ahead rather submissively, while her child tries to pluck a grape – a remarkably playful gesture. Two cherubs are holding up a cloth by way of a baldachin.
oil on panel
62.7 x 42 cm.
NK Collection; on loan since 1953 and transferred into the museum's keeping by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands in 1960