The Saint Anne Altarpiece: Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child [middle panel]

Niederländische Malerei 1445–1530, circa 1500/1520

Two women and a baby, all with pale skin, sit together on a gray, stone throne with patterned fabric hanging behind them and a patterned rug below in this narrow, vertical painting. The woman sitting on the throne, Saint Anne, is the largest. A second woman, Mary, is smaller in scale, and she sits on Saint Anne’s lap. Mary, in turn, holds a nude baby boy on her lap. Both women have light brown eyes under faint, arched brows, smooth skin, long straight noses, and their shell-pink lips are closed. Saint Anne sits with her body facing us and she looks down with her head slightly tilted to our left. Her white head covering drapes over her shoulders and hangs down from her chin to cover her neck. She wears a marine-blue dress cinched at her waist with a black and gold belt, and a crimson-red robe that falls to and puddles around her feet. Her right arm, on our left, wraps around and holds Mary’s hip, and she supports a book with gold-edged pages with her other hand. Mary sits on Saint Anne’s right thigh, to our left, and leans toward the baby, who sits on her left knee, to our right. Her long, wavy, brown hair falls over her shoulders, and she wears a cobalt-blue robe over a lilac-purple dress. The baby has short, curly blond hair and reaches to turn the pages of the book. He has rounded cheeks and a pudgy torso. The stone throne is ornamented on the arms and at the top corners with ivory-white, nude children that are presumably also carved out of stone. The cloth hanging behind Saint Anne is decorated with glimmering gold, ornamental leaf designs against a pine-green background. The rug beneath her feet is a geometric pattern of red, tan, black, and white.
Artista
Niederländische Malerei 1445–1530
Datazione
circa 1500/1520
Tipologia
Dipinto
Tecnica
Olio su tavola
Dimensioni
painted surface (including addition at top): 232,5 × 96 cm
Collezione
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Licenza
Pubblico dominio, CC0

Descrizione dell’immagine

Two women and a baby, all with pale skin, sit together on a gray, stone throne with patterned fabric hanging behind them and a patterned rug below in this narrow, vertical painting. The woman sitting on the throne, Saint Anne, is the largest. A second woman, Mary, is smaller in scale, and she sits on Saint Anne’s lap. Mary, in turn, holds a nude baby boy on her lap. Both women have light brown eyes under faint, arched brows, smooth skin, long straight noses, and their shell-pink lips are closed. Saint Anne sits with her body facing us and she looks down with her head slightly tilted to our left. Her white head covering drapes over her shoulders and hangs down from her chin to cover her neck. She wears a marine-blue dress cinched at her waist with a black and gold belt, and a crimson-red robe that falls to and puddles around her feet. Her right arm, on our left, wraps around and holds Mary’s hip, and she supports a book with gold-edged pages with her other hand. Mary sits on Saint Anne’s right thigh, to our left, and leans toward the baby, who sits on her left knee, to our right. Her long, wavy, brown hair falls over her shoulders, and she wears a cobalt-blue robe over a lilac-purple dress. The baby has short, curly blond hair and reaches to turn the pages of the book. He has rounded cheeks and a pudgy torso. The stone throne is ornamented on the arms and at the top corners with ivory-white, nude children that are presumably also carved out of stone. The cloth hanging behind Saint Anne is decorated with glimmering gold, ornamental leaf designs against a pine-green background. The rug beneath her feet is a geometric pattern of red, tan, black, and white.

Niederländische Malerei 1445–1530