{
"data": {
"id": 97155,
"accession_number": "1916.793",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Portrait of a Couple, c. 1580\u201388. Northern Italy, late 16th century. Oil on canvas; framed: 132 x 173 x 10.5 cm (51 15/16 x 68 1/8 x 4 1/8 in.); unframed: 99.8 x 140.5 cm (39 5/16 x 55 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Holden Collection, 1916.793",
"current_location": "118 Italian Renaissance",
"title": "Portrait of a Couple",
"creation_date": "c. 1580\u201388",
"creation_date_earliest": 1580,
"creation_date_latest": 1588,
"artists_tags": [],
"culture": [
"Northern Italy, late 16th century"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "P - Italian 16th & 17th Century",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 132 x 173 x 10.5 cm (51 15/16 x 68 1/8 x 4 1/8 in.); Unframed: 99.8 x 140.5 cm (39 5/16 x 55 5/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 1.32,
"height_inch": 51,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.9375,
"width": 1.73,
"width_inch": 68,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.125,
"depth": 0.105,
"depth_inch": 4,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.125
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.998,
"height_inch": 39,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.3125,
"width": 1.405,
"width_inch": 55,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.3125
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "inscribed upper left: AETA, SVAE, ANNO. XXXV, upper right: AETA. SVAE. ANNO. XXVIII",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 317001,
"title": "Inaugural Exhibition",
"description": "Inaugural Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (June 6-September 20, 1916).",
"opening_date": "1916-06-06T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 312517,
"title": "The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition",
"description": "The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936).",
"opening_date": "1936-06-26T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 300857,
"title": "Art: The International Language",
"description": "Art: The International Language. The Cleveland Museum of Art (October 2-November 4, 1956).",
"opening_date": "1956-10-02T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 302205,
"title": "Art and Humanism in the Renaissance",
"description": "Art and Humanism in the Renaissance. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 23-February 25, 1962).",
"opening_date": "1962-01-23T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Boston, 1883: American Exhibition of Foregin Products, Arts, and Manufactures: Art Department, \"Jarves Collection,' pp. 20-22. (A Checklist of the collection exhibited by James Jackson Jarves at the Boston exposition; the collection was viewed and subsequently purchased, in toto, by Mr and Mrs L. E. Holden of Cleveland.)",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1912: \"Loan Exhibition of the Holden Collection,\" catalogue: Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. vIII, no. 10 (October 1912), pp. 174-183; author Bryson Burroughs.)",
"opening_date": "1912-10-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA, 1916: \"The Inaugural Exhibition of CMA,\" cat. no. 27.",
"opening_date": "1916-01-01T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "Denver Art Museum, March1-April 30, 1956: \"Clothers Make the Man,\" repr. p. 13 in catalogue.",
"opening_date": "1956-04-30T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "CMA, 1962: \"Art and Humanism in the Renaissance,\" (no catalogue).",
"opening_date": "1962-01-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "James Jackson Jarves (1884).",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Mrs. Liberty E. Holden, Cleveland.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The bejeweled martin (weasel) was a coveted fashion accessory in Renaissance Europe.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "While the attribution remains hotly debated, this work exemplifies how Italian portraiture of the 1500s could articulate family alliances through marriage. The inscription gives the sitters\u2019 ages as 35 and 28, and their elaborate jewelry, weapons, and garments, made of expensive materials, convey their elite status. The marten skin attached to the woman\u2019s waist-its head decorated with gems-symbolized propriety. These expressions of wealth convey achievements and position rather than accurate personalities, and the figures, though lifelike, stand in awkward relationship to each other, their interaction one of alliance not love.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60502651"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1916.793-portrait-of-a-couple"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Rubinstein-Bloch, Stella. Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings, Etc. Presented by Mrs. Liberty E. Holden to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1917.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 29, cat. no. 28; Reproduced: p. 60, No. 28",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/Holden_80856/page/n39"
},
{
"citation": "G. U. \"The Holden Collection.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 2 (1917): 19-34.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: pp. 19, 20; reproduced: p. 35",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25136067"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1925.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: 25",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook_80839/page/n27"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 29",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1928/page/n33"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 411",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n75"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 96",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n120"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 96",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n120"
},
{
"citation": "Pillsbury, Edmund P. \u201cTwo Portraits by Giovanni Battista Moroni.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 3 (March 1971): 74\u201384.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 77, fig. 4",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152365"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 113",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n133"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 458; Mentioned: p. 459-460",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Lisby, Darnell-Jamal, William Griswold, Matteo Augello, Alessandra Arezzi Boza, Massimiliano Capella, Luke Meagher, Stefania Ricci, and Cleveland Museum of Art. Renaissance to Runway: The Enduring Italian Houses. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2025.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 146-147, pl. 31",
"url": ""
}
],
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"creditline": "Holden Collection",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 97155,
"creators": [],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1916-06-22T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1580,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1580\u201388",
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"alternate_titles": [
"Portrait of a Gentleman and His Wife"
],
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"updated_at": "2026-09-12 11:31:23.313000"
}
}