About the Artwork
Josef Israëls chronicled everyday routines of poor fishing communities to convey their inherent dignity. In The Cottage Madonna, he rendered a barefoot peasant woman feeding her child in a modest Dutch interior, equipped with a fireplace and a foot warmer. A chaplet cross hung against the plain mantel cloth alludes to a Christian image of Mary as a nurturing mother and symbolizes piety.
Israëls, who was known under the moniker “Dutch Millet,” based this composition partly on the print La Bouille (1861) by French artist Jean-François Millet. Millet popularized peasant subjects in European art of the second half of the nineteenth century and was highly respected in the artistic circles of The Hague.
The Cottage Madonna
ca. 1867
Josef Israëls
1824-1911
Dutch
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 53 × 39 1/4 inches (134.6 × 99.7 cm) Framed: 69 3/8 × 56 1/2 × 5 1/2 inches, 76 pounds (176.2 × 143.5 × 14 cm, 34.5 kg)
Paintings
European Modern Art to 1970
Bequest of Nell Ford Torrey
59.117
Public Domain
Markings
Signed, lower left: Josef Israels
Provenance
1880s, collection of Alexander Young (London, England).collection of Mrs. Harry N. Torrey [Nell Ford Torrey];
1959-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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Memorial Catalogue of the French and Dutch Loan Collection. Exh. cat., Edinburgh International Exhibition. Edinburgh, 1886 [cat. published in 1888], p. 101, cat. 123 [lent by Alexander Young, London].
Gunsaulus, Frank Wakeley. Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Josef Israels. Exh. cat., Toledo Museum of Art. Toledo, 1912, cat. 241.
Gunsaulus, F. W. Joseph Israels: An Address delivered at the opening of the exhibition of Josep Israels' Paintings Toledo Museum of Art. 1912, (repr.).
Eisler, M. Jozef Israëls. London, The Studio, 1924, pl. XVI [no location cited].
De Haagse School. Hollandse Meesters van de 19de Eeuw. Exh. cat., Grand Palais, Royal Academy, Haags Gemeentemuseum. Paris, London, The Hague, January 15-October 31, 1983, cat. 32, (repr.) [as ca. 1867].
Sutton, P. C. Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids, 1986, pp. 89-90, (fig. 127), pl. 16.
Josef Israels. Exh. cat., Groninger Museum voor Stad en Lande. Groningen, 1999-2000, cat.
Stott, A. "The Dutch Dining Room in Turn-of-the-Century America," Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 37, no. 4 (2002): pp. 219-238, esp. p. 230, (fig. 9).
Jozef Israels -- A Heart's Desire. Exh. cat., Reuben and Edith Hecht Museum, University of Haifa. Haifa, p. 40 (fig. 37), p. 31* [sic] [in essay by Jochai Rosen, "Jozef Israels and Seventeenth Century Dutch Genre Painting;" not in exhibition].
Between Nature and Nationality: The Hague School in the Nineteenth Century. Exh. cat., Center Art Gallery, Calvin College. Grand Rapids, October 5-November 17, 2007, pp. 27-31, 66, cat. 19, (fig. 6).
Holland op z'n mooist. Exh. cat., Dordechts Museum. Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2015, p. 14, no. 12.
Jonkman, Mayken, et al. Les Hollandais à Paris: Jongkind, Breitner, Van Gogh, Van Dongen, Mondrian 1840-1914. Exh. cat., Van Gogh Museum et al. Amsterdam, 2018, p.114 (fig. 101).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Josef Israëls, The Cottage Madonna, ca. 1867, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Bequest of Nell Ford Torrey, 59.117.
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