Getty Museum
The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne
Creator
Lieven van LathemFlemish Illuminator · 1430–1493
All works by this person →One of the most successful illuminators in Flanders, Lieven van Lathem worked for powerful patrons including the dukes of Burgundy, Philip the Good, and Charles the Bold. A member of the painter's guilds in Ghent and Antwerp, van Lathem collaborated with some of the most talented Flemish illuminators of the time, including the Master of Mary of Burgundy and Nicolas Spierinc *.* Influenced by the N
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1469
- Medium
- Tempera colors, gold leaf, gold paint, silver paint, and ink
- Culture
- Flemish
- Department
- Manuscripts
- Institution
- Getty Museum
The Virgin Mary offers her breast to the infant Jesus as her mother, Saint Anne, reaches toward the child. Episodes from the story of the conception of the Virgin appear in the background. In the distance, the Virgin's father Joachim tends his sheep in the countryside. An angel, rendered by just a few strokes of red paint, appears to him and tells him that his elderly wife will conceive a child. Upon hearing the news, he returns to Jerusalem. Joachim and Anne embrace before the gate to the city in the middle ground at right. The artist, Lieven van Lathem, tied the elements of the narrative together by showing the figures in the same clothes at each appearance and by carefully modulating the recession of the landscape into the distance.
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