The Holy Family with Saint Elizabethc. 1503
While this landscape might seem desolate and strange, it is rife with religious symbolism. More about this work
About this work
While this landscape might seem desolate and strange, it is rife with religious symbolism. The Virgin Mary and Christ on the right sit with Mary’s cousin, Saint Elizabeth, and her son, Saint John the Baptist. The Bible describes Elizabeth as past childbearing age; both she and Mary were granted virgin births by God. The barren trees, therefore, signify Elizabeth’s infertility, while the fencelike enclosure denotes the enclosed garden of virginity. The trees also remind viewers of Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. Jacopo de’ Barbari placed lively grapevines on the dying trees, a metaphor for Christ.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Engraving
- Lines cut directly into a metal plate with a steel burin, which makes them swell and taper. It took years to master, and for centuries it was how paintings travelled as pictures.
Renaissance
European art from about 1400 to 1600, when painters rediscovered perspective and the classical past.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1930.575
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Department
- Prints
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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