The Holy Family on the Steps
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
unframed: 73.3 × 105.8 cm · framed: 103.5 × 135.3 × 13.3 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Accession Number
1981.18
Tags
About this artwork
This deceptively simple composition represents a complex meditation on the Holy Family’s role in the redemption of humanity. At the center, Mary presents the Christ child to the world. At the left, Saint Elizabeth leans forward to foretell his eventual death, while her son, Saint John the Baptist, offers Jesus an apple, signifying humanity’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. At the right, Saint Joseph holds a compass, a sign of his occupation as a carpenter and also symbolic of God the Fath...