Virgin and child in a landscape
Gerard David, 1520
Gérard David's panel shows the Virgin holding the Christ Child in the foreground, set before an open landscape. The Virgin's pose recurs in other works by the painter now in New York, Washington and Madrid, where the same figure serves to depict the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. In this Rotterdam version, however, the emphasis falls on the background: the landscape is read as a hortus conclusus, the enclosed garden of the Song of Songs, a traditional image of Mary's purity. White lilies, a common symbol of her virginity, are added as well. The result turns a religious subject into a setting that invites this symbolic reading. It is worth noting that the interpretation of these elements rests on studying the work itself and its relationship to other versions of the same compositional scheme.
- Painter
- Gerard David
- Date
- 1520
- Medium
- wood, oil paint
- Dimensions
- 43 × 25 cm
- Museum
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
- Movement
- Early Netherlandish painting
- Genre
- religious art
- Depicts
- hortus conclusus, Mary, Christ Child
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