Virgin and Child

This small panel, just over half a metre tall, was painted around 1490 on Swiss stone pine, a tree of the high Alps. Mary looks down at the Child as she holds him in a white cloth, one hand under his back and the other holding his leg, while he turns to look straight out of the picture. Behind her hangs a dark cloth of honour patterned with large gold leaves. On either side the gold ground gives way to small landscapes, a tower and a stretch of water on one side, trees on the other. Two birds sit on a low garden wall. On the ledge in front lie red carnations. In German the flower was called Nägelein, little nail, and painters of the time used it to recall the nails of the Cross.