Het Christuskind, druiven etend

Joos van Cleve's Christ Child Eating Grapes (Het Christuskind, druiven etend) presents an intimate devotional type showing the Christ child with grapes, a Eucharistic symbolism that connected the fruit of the vine with the blood of Christ. Van Cleve's characteristically warm and intimate treatment of the divine child gives this symbolic action the naturalness of observed childhood, the child's absorbed enjoyment of eating simultaneously innocent and theologically charged. Such intimate devotional images, typically small in format and exquisitely finished, served private contemplative use in Flemish domestic settings.

The devotional composition is rendered with attention to the expressive and contemplative qualities that served the painting's function as an aid to prayer and meditation.