Visitation of Mary

Two expectant women clasp hands, the young Mary and her older cousin Elizabeth. The Gospel of Luke says Elizabeth's child leapt in her womb at the greeting. Reichlich set the meeting in a town he could have walked through. Behind them rises a whitewashed building with square windows, a corner turret and a crown of battlements. A young woman in a red dress follows Mary with a bundle balanced on her head. In the square beyond, smaller figures go about their day, carrying loads and talking in doorways. Scholars have noted the influence of Venetian painters such as Giovanni Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio in Reichlich's work, and Carpaccio in particular filled his pictures with this kind of everyday street life. The panel was painted as a pair with the Presentation in the Temple, and the museum dates both to 1502 with a question mark.