Saint Joseph with the Christ Child

Label

Churches in Europe were once richly decorated with free-standing statues of saints. The cult devoted to Joseph, the adoptive father of Christ, developed only in the 15th century, and this statue is a rare surviving depiction of the saint and Jesus. The child holds a ball suggesting a king’s orb, and tucked in Joseph’s belt are the tools of his trade as a carpenter. While now missing his left hand, he may have held an additional identifying object. Such statues could be commissioned by specific craft guilds, which regulated training and practice of trades. On the base of the statue are two men who hold a square and a saw, marking them as carpenters. Local woodworkers’ guild members were the likely patrons of this statue and would have taken Joseph as their patron saint.

From the 2024 exhibition Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art, and Ashley Offill, Curator of Collections

Course History

ARTH 43, Northern Renaissance Art, Jane Carroll, Winter 2012

REL 60, Reformations: Protestant and Catholic, Catherine Randall, Fall 2013

ARTH 33, Gothic Art and Architecture, Jane Carroll, Spring 2014

ARTH 33, Gothic Art and Architecture, Jane Carroll, Spring 2014

ARTH 15.1, Gothic Art, Jane Carroll, Spring 2019

GERM 03, Intermediate German, Klaus Mladek and Lisa Oberberger, Spring 2020

GERM 03, Intermediate German, Klaus Mladek and Lisa Oberberger, Spring 2020

GERM 003, Intermediate German, Lisa Oberberger, Fall 2020

GERM 003, Intermediate German, Lisa Oberberger, Fall 2020

GERM 03, Intermediate German, Lisa Oberberger, Winter 2021

GERM 03, Intermediate German, Lisa Oberberger, Spring 2021

GERM 03, Intermediate German, Klaus Mladek and Lisa Oberberger, Spring 2021

HIST 96.39, Saints and Material Devotion, Cecilia Gaposchkin, Fall 2021

HIST 96.39, Saints and Relics, Cecilia Gaposchkin, Fall 2021

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

Exhibition History

European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 30, 2008-March 8, 2009.

Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, Citrin Family Gallery and Engles Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 23, 2024–March 22, 2025.

Publication History

T. Barton Thurber, "European Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art", Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2008, pp. 34-35, ill. pp. 34/35, no. 5.

Provenance

Mark Lansburgh, Santa Fe, New Mexico; given to present collection, 2007.

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Subjects