The Infants Jesus Christ and Saint John the Baptist Embracing

1520–25

Joos van Cleve and Workshop
Netherlandish, Active by 1507–1540/41

Joos van Cleve sold many versions of this painting to an international clientele eager for luxury goods. To suit the taste of his customers, Van Cleve learned to adapt the ideal forms of the Italian Renaissance to a Northern European context. Here, the poses and modeling of the intertwined children are indebted to the Italian painter Leonardo da Vinci, while the elaborate metalwork accents and costly materials comprising the architec- ture are characteristic of Northern European art. This particular painting includes the arms of its first owner— Pompejus Occo, the Amsterdam representative of the powerful German banking firm of Fugger—along the upper edge.

Status: On View, Gallery 207
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Joos van Cleve
Title: The Infants Jesus Christ and Saint John the Baptist Embracing
Place: Holland (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1520–1535
Medium: Oil on panel
Inscriptions: Inscribed: Coats of arms of Occo (at top of arch, left) and Claes (at top of arch, right)
Dimensions: 74.7 × 57.6 cm (29 7/16 × 22 11/16 in.)
Credit Line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 1975.136
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/48532/manifest.json

Ilse Hecht, “The Infants Christ and Saint John Embracing: A Composition by Joos van Cleve,” AIC Bulletin 73 (1979), pp. 12–14, fig. 1.
Bernard Huys and Sebastien A. C. Dudok van Heel, Occo Codex, Buren, 1979, pl. 5.
Ilse Hecht, “The Infants Christ and Saint John Embracing: Notes on a Composition by Joos van Cleve,” Apollo 113 (1981), pp. 222–29, pl. 1.
John David Farmer, “Bernard van Orley of Brussels,” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1981, p. 135.
Larry Silver, The Paintings of Quinten Massys with Catalogue Raisonné, Montclair, N.J., 1984, pp. 81, 180, 182, 188 n. 24, 190 n. 45, pl. 166.
S[ebastian] A. C. Dudok van Heel, “Amsterdamse portretten uit de zestiende eeuw (V), Amstelodamum 73 (1986), p. 110 (ill.).
John Oliver Hand, “Joos van Cleve’s Holy Family,” Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin (1989), pp. 17, 25 n. 26.
Franco Moro, “Spunti sulla diffusione di un tema leonardesco tra Italia e Fiandra sino a Lanino,” in I leonardeschi a Milano: Fortuna e collezionismo, ed. Maria Teresa Fiorio and Pietro C. Marani, Milan, 1991, pp. 127–128, fig. 8.
Guy Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America, Antwerp, 1992, p. 343, no. 287 (ill.).
C[arlo] P[edretti], “The Swedish Courier,” Achademia Leonardi Vinci 8 (1995), pp. 241–42.
Larry Silver, “Kith and Kin: A Rediscovered Sacred Image by Massys,” in Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Cambridge, Mass., 1995, p. 233, fig. 3.
Jochen Sander, “Leonardo in Antwerpen: Joos van Cleves ‘Christus- und Johannesknabe, einander umarmend,’” Städel-Jahrbuch, n.s., 15 (1995), pp. 177, 183.
John Oliver Hand, “Joos van Cleve,” in The Dictionary of Art, vol. 7, New York 1996, p. 425.
Paul Mitchell and Lynn Roberts, “Frame,” in The Dictionary of Art, vol. 11, New York, 1996, p. 486.
Laura Traversi, “Il tema dei ‘Due fanciulli che si baciano e abbracciano’ tra ‘leonardismo italiano’ e ‘leonardismo fiammingo,’” Raccolta Vinciana 27 (1997), pp. 382, 385, 399–410, 415, 429–31, 434, no. 2, fig. 2.
Laura Traversi, “Il tema leonardesco dei ‘Due fanciulli che se baciano e abbracciano’: Il dipinto di Chatsworth e una proposta attributiva a Jan Massys,” Annales de la Société royale d’archéologie de Bruxelles 62 (1998), pp. 111–12, 116, 126–27, 129, 132.
Laura Traversi and Jorgen Wadum, “Un Tableau avec ‘Deux Enfants s’embrassant’ au Mauritshuis,” in Colloque XII 1999, pp. 103, 106–07.
Peter van den Brink, “The Art of Copying. Coyping and Serial Production of Paintings in the Low Countries in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries,” in Brueghel Enterprises, exh. cat., Maastricht, Bonnefanten Museum, 200l, p. 33.
Dagmar Eichberger, Leben mit Kunst, Wirken durch Kunst: Sammelwesen und Hofkunst unter Margarete von Österreich, Regentin der Niederlande, Turnhout, 2002, p. 31.
John Oliver Hand, Joos van Cleve: The Complete Paintings, New Haven and London, 2004, pp. 98–99, 164, no. 81, fig. 104.
Micha Leeflang, “Serial Production in Joos van Cleve’s Workshop,” in Bulletin des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 55 (2006), forthcoming.
Martha Wolff in Martha Wolff, Susan Frances Jones, et al., Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago. A Catalogue of the Collection, Chicago, 2008, pp. 159-67, ill. p. 160 and fig. 1.
Everhard Korthals altes, “International rivalry at the auction of Willem Lormier’s paintings in 1763: James Lowther, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, and August III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland,” Simiolus 4 (2015-2016), pp.276, 282, no. 1, fig. 6.
E[lizabeth] M[attison] in François Ier et l’art des Pays-Bas, ed. Cécile Scailliérez, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2017, pp. 294-95, under no. 117.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Leonardo da Vinci Loan Exhibition, 1949, cat. 34.
The Art Institute of Chicago, New Light on Old Masters: Research on Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute, 26 June—14 September 2008, no cat.

Pompejus Occo (died 1537), Amsterdam. Spanish Art Gallery, London, 1949; sold to French and Co., New York, 1949 [according to Robert Samuels of French and Co., in conversation with Martha Wolff, March 31 and April 7, 1989]; sold to Ernest Joresco, Chicago, 1963 [according to Samuels, this took place on Dec. 21, 1963]; sold to the Art Institute, 1975.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Inscriptions

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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