Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child, Saint James the Great and Saint Roch as Intercessors for Mankind Ridden by the Plague

Around 1515 plague was an ordinary fact in the Swiss towns, coming and going without warning, and people appealed to particular saints for cover. Manuel made this votive image, thin tempera on unvarnished cloth, for exactly that fear. Saint Anne sits with her daughter the Virgin and the Christ child, and beside them stand two protectors, Saint James the pilgrim and Saint Roch, who was believed to guard against plague and is usually shown baring a sore on his own leg. The group is offered, as the long old title says, as intercessors for a mankind ridden by the plague. It later passed to the Basel jurist Basilius Amerbach, odd among his pictures for its Catholic subject.