The Virgin and Child

Cranach signed this panel with his little winged serpent and the date 1529, and that year matters. In February 1529 the city of Basel, where the painting now hangs, went through its own outbreak of image-breaking: crowds stripped the churches of statues and paintings and burned them in the squares, part of the Reformation's turn against religious images. A tender Madonna like this one was exactly the kind of thing under attack. Cranach worked both sides of that divide, supplying Protestant Wittenberg while still painting the Virgin for Catholic patrons. Here she sits turned slightly to one side, holding the Christ Child, who has a small piece of bread in his hand, a quiet nod to the bread of the Mass.