The Circumcision of Christ (interior) and the Virgin Mary from a Visitation (exterior)

Around 1500, the first of January was a church feast, the Feast of the Circumcision. Eight days after his birth, Luke's Gospel says, the Child was circumcised and given the name Jesus, and this panel shows that rite. An old man in a tall red hat holds the Child on his lap. A bearded man kneels before them with a white cloth spread over his knees and a small knife in his hand. Mary stands at the edge with her hands joined, and women in white headdresses crowd in behind her. The Belvedere assigns the panel to an unknown South Tyrolean painter of the late 15th century. It was once a wing of an altarpiece. Its outer face, the one seen when the altar was closed, shows the Virgin from a Visitation, the scene of her meeting with her cousin Elizabeth.