2-975-682 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Virgin and Child with St Anne, 1630. Also known in English by its German name, Anna Selbdritt, such depictions as the present painting show three generations of the Holy Family. The bunch of grapes Anna offers the Christ Child is a Eucharistic symbol, and refers to Mary as the vine on which the grapes (Christ) grew. The figures are shown in an ordinary domestic interior. The curtain behind Mary, while not seeming out of place, functions as a rather modest cloth of honour. The mirror, with a small broom appended to it, hanging next to the window is probably a reference to Mary’s Immaculate Conception.