The Story
Virgin and Child, c. 1662. Anna Maria Carew (British), after Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641). Watercolor heightened with gum on vellum, with gold; diameter: 12.1 cm (4 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Painting and Drawing Society of The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008.148
Created in 1662 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the religion & mythology tradition. Anna Maria Carew worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in watercolor heightened with gum on vellum, with gold, measuring Diameter: 12.1 cm (4 3/4 in.), the surface rewards close looking. Anna Maria Carew builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
