The Holy Family

This panel is small enough to hold in two hands, a little over 26 centimetres tall, and it was painted on the Upper Rhine around 1480 to 1490 for someone's private prayers. Mary sits in a stone room, picking a single grape from the bunch in her hand for the child on her lap, and more grapes lie in a basket at her feet. Behind her Joseph steps out of a dark archway carrying sheaves of wheat, which appear right beside the child's head. Wine and bread point ahead to the Eucharist and to the death on the cross.

Technical examination has shown that the picture was changed several times while it was being made. It may first have shown only the Virgin and Child in front of a curtain, with Joseph added later. Like every painting linked to Schongauer, it carries no signature, and the case for his hand rests on how closely it matches his monogrammed engravings.