Saint Joseph

Description This figure of Saint Joseph was once brightly colored. It was probably part of a Nativity group that included the baby Jesus being worshiped by the Virgin Mary. Painted terracotta was popular in 15th-century Tuscany, where it was typically used for multi-figure religious compositions, arranged as if on a stage. Joseph's meditative pose isolates him from the Virgin and Child and places emphasis on the fact that Joseph, the patron saint of fathers, was not Christ's biological father.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
6/28/1971	Treatment	cleaned

Exhibitions

• Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1915. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 1915-1929.
• Artful Deception: The Craft of the Forger. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, Grosse Pointe Shores; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City; Portland Museum of Art, Portland; The Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, Nashville; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento; Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison; Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester; The Barnum Museum, Bridgeport. 1987-1992.

Provenance Thomas Fortune Ryan, New York [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Joseph Brummer [date and mode of acquisition unknown; Brummer Sale, New York, III, 1949, no. 454; Walters Art Museum, June 9, 1949, by purchase.

Credit Museum purchase, 1949