Getty Presents “The Holy Family at Home”

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents “The Holy Family at Home,” an exhibition exploring the domestic intimacy and symbolic meanings in the Museum’s recently acquired painting “The Holy Family” by Gerard David.

The painting will be featured alongside several illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings from the 15th and 16th centuries that informed David’s artistic approach.

On view at the Getty Center from Sept. 22, 2026 through Jan. 10, 2027, the exhibition will highlight Northern European paintings and illuminated manuscripts from about 1400 to 1530, drawn from the Getty Museum’s collection, as well as significant loans from local institutions and private collections.

“This exhibition provides an opportunity for the Museum to showcase the formal and thematic connections among the holdings of northern late medieval and Renaissance art in our collection,” said Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “It is especially exciting to also be able to highlight our recently acquired painting by the renowned Netherlandish artist Gerard David, a rare and captivating depiction of the Holy Family, which was the inspiration for this exhibition.”

The exhibition centers on David’s painting of the Holy Family, in which the Virgin Mary, Christ child and Joseph gather for a meal in their home located in the lush countryside of Northern Europe. The Virgin and Child affectionately embrace, while nearby Joseph holds a wooden bowl with a lid, keeping the food inside warm. David dissolves the boundary between the Holy Family and the viewer by placing the large-scale figures in the foreground of the painting, as if the viewer shares the room with them. His portrayal of Joseph within the family as an earthly father figure and provider revises earlier characterizations of Joseph as a passive and peripheral figure. David’s approach helped establish a model of the Holy Family that gained mass appeal during the Renaissance and has shaped modern perceptions of the Holy Family.

A number of painters, including David in Bruges, worked on both panel and parchment, explaining the representation of similar themes in paintings and manuscripts of the period. Many theological writings and sermons redefined Joseph’s role engaged in the raising of Jesus and a participant in the everyday activities of the Holy Family. The religious movement in Northern Europe known as the modern devotion (devotio moderna in Latin) identified God’s message within ordinary subjects. Joseph became a model exemplar as a loving husband to Mary and a caring father to Jesus, and artists during the time portrayed the Holy Family in domestic interiors, engaged in relatable routines like reading, cooking and playing with toys. One such image is a French manuscript illustrating the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Christ, while Joseph prepares a meal for his family by the fire, a relatable everyday scene for contemporary viewers.

The trend of Joseph as a prominent presence in the Holy Family was propelled by the writings of French theologian Jean Gerson, who countered traditional characterizations of Joseph that were based on biblical accounts. Another manuscript in the exhibition, “The Flight into Egypt,” shows Joseph protectively cradling Jesus in his arms while walking beside Mary and their donkey, changing the well-established interpretations of Mary carrying Jesus on the flight into Egypt.

Rare loans to the exhibition from California museum collections include paintings of the Virgin and Child by Rogier van der Weyden and Dieric Bouts, important predecessors for David, who portrayed the subject in informal ways and brought these sacred figures closer to the viewer. While both panels depict Mary tenderly holding the infant Jesus in her arms, van der Weyden’s version conveys the child inquisitively opening the clasp of a book of scripture. His wriggling body and rapt expression reflect his humanity while his interest in opening the book suggests the acceptance of his role as humankind’s redeemer. Bouts’s composition also portrays Mary and Jesus intimately, but contrasts their psychological states: Christ, as a chubby infant eagerly seeks his mother’s response, while she remains somber.

Another highlight of the exhibition is “Madonna of the Cherries,” a painting by Quentin Metsys that joined Getty’s collection in 2024. Metsys explicitly references the work of Bouts and David, as the Virgin embraces the infant Christ who wraps both arms around his mother’s neck and kisses her, but transferred the affectionate Virgin and Child from David’s domestic interior to an opulent throne room with a window overlooking a verdant landscape.

“Gerard David innovatively combined established imagery with a new domestic sensibility that heightened the significance of the Holy Family for his patrons,” said Anne Woollett, curator of paintings at the Getty Museum. “These intimate images used in private devotional practice resonated with viewers over 500 years ago and continue to compel us today, not only for their beauty, but because they speak to experiences that remain deeply human.”

“The Holy Family at Home” is curated by Anne Woollett, curator of paintings at the Getty Museum, and Elizabeth Morrison, senior curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. On Nov. 7, the curators of the exhibition will be joined in conversation with Maryan Ainsworth, curator emeritus of paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Thomas Kren, former director for collections at the Getty Museum. The conversation will be held in-person at the Getty Center and livestreamed online.