It is the last of Baldung's depictions of the Virgin and Child and displays characteristic features of the painter's own brand of mannerism, such as strong contrasts between pale skins and dark backgrounds, and the combination of natural gestures and artificial poses.[3][1] The painting may have been commissioned by a Protestant patron, which would account for the modesty (both in size and in clothing) of the figure of Mary. By contrast, slightly earlier Baldung works of the same type (such as the Nuremberg version, or the Berlin version) had depicted Mary as a dominant, sensuous semi-nude.[4]
References
^ abBroucke, Camille (December 2013). Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame. Arts du Moyen-Âge et de la Renaissance. Strasbourg: Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg. p. 182. ISBN9782351251058.
^Dupeux, Cécile (December 1999). Strasbourg - Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame. Paris: Éditions Scala. pp. 86–87. ISBN2-86656-223-2.
^Rieger, Théodore (2014). "Hans Baldung Grien en Alsace"(PDF). Canopé - Académie de Strasbourg. p. 27. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
^Weber am Bach, Sibylle (2019). Hans Baldung Grien heilig | unheilig. Deutscher Kunstverlag. pp. 450–451. ISBN978-3-422-97981-9.