Artwork
Virgin and Child
Virgin and Child is an oil painting by the Northern Renaissance artist Dieric Bouts. It dates from 1450 and is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst. Created circa 1450, this oil painting presents the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The painting shows the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ, a conventional iconography of maternal tenderness and divine protection within Western Christian art. By presenting the holy figures in a quiet domestic interior, the work underscores their humanity while reinforcing their sacred status, embodying both theological doctrine and devotional practice of the period.
Technique & Style
This small devotional panel is executed in oil paint on a wooden support, a technique characteristic of mid-15th-century Netherlandish painting.
This small devotional panel is executed in oil paint on a wooden support, a technique characteristic of mid-15th-century Netherlandish painting. According to the catalogue record, the materials are listed as panel and oil paint, and the work measures 42.5 cm in height by 27.5 cm in width, an intimate scale suited to private devotion. The composition depicts the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child as its main subject, classified within the religious genre.
Stylistically, the work is attributed to Dieric Bouts and dated to 1450, placing it within the Early Netherlandish tradition of refined, devotional Madonna imagery. The modest dimensions and oil-on-panel handling are consistent with the small-format devotional paintings produced in the Southern Netherlands during this period. No information about the current condition of the panel is recorded in the available sources.
History & Provenance
Dieric Bouts's Virgin and Child is dated to 1450 and executed in oil paint on panel, classifying the work as a mid-fifteenth-century devotional painting. The panel measures 42.5 cm in height by 27.5 cm in width.
The painting is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Denmark, where it is catalogued under the reference DEP2. No information regarding an original commission, early patronage, or subsequent chain of ownership prior to its acquisition by the museum is documented in the available sources.
The painting is held by the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK), Copenhagen, where it is recorded as inventory DEP2.
It was included in the museum’s holdings by the time of the Wikidata entry’s compilation, which lists the work’s dimensions as 42.5 cm in height and 27.5 cm in width.
Overview
Created circa 1450, this oil painting presents the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ. The work is attributed to Dieric Bouts, an Early Netherlandish artist active in the mid‑15th century, and is part of the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Dieric Bouts (born c. 1415 – 6 May 1475) was an Early Netherlandish painter. Bouts may have studied under Rogier van der Weyden, and his work was influenced by van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. He worked in Leuven from…
