Artwork
Mary with the Christ-child and an angel
Mary with the Christ-child and an angel is an oil painting by the Mannerist artist Hans Baldung Grien. It dates from 1539 and is held in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Berlin.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The iconography incorporates specific symbolic elements, most notably a grape, which traditionally alludes to the Eucharist and the future Passion of Christ.
The work depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ Child, a composition categorized as a Madonna and Child within the tradition of religious art. This intimate scene includes a putto, often interpreted as an angel, positioned alongside the holy figures. The iconography incorporates specific symbolic elements, most notably a grape, which traditionally alludes to the Eucharist and the future Passion of Christ.
Created by Hans Baldung Grien in 1539, the painting utilizes these visual motifs to convey theological themes of incarnation and redemption through the domestic act of nursing.
Technique & Style
The painting employs oil on lime panel, a common support in sixteenth-century German workshops. Handling shows Baldung’s characteristic crisp delineation of drapery folds and attenuated figures, with delicate glazes used to model Mary’s face and the Christ Child’s flesh. The angel’s playful gesture and the nursing motif are rendered with precise contours and a cool, silvery palette.
The composition’s vertical emphasis and the flat, decorative patterning of the background suggest an awareness of late Gothic stylistic conventions, tempered by Renaissance spatial restraint.
Condition appears stable; the panel is uncusped, with original engaged frame visible.
History & Provenance
Created in 1539, the painting Mary with the Christ-child and an angel was executed by Hans Baldung Grien in oil on a lime panel. The work depicts the Madonna and Child alongside an angel and includes motifs such as breastfeeding and grapes. It is currently held in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, which is part of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
The painting is located at the museum's Jagdschloss Grunewald site. Specific details regarding the original commission, the identity of the initial patron, or the precise chain of ownership prior to its arrival at the Berlin museum are not provided in the available records.
Mary with the Christ-child and an angel is housed in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, part of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, where it remains on display. The work was created in 1539 by Hans Baldung Grien using oil paint on a lime panel, measuring 91.5 cm in height and 63.3 cm in width. It has been part of the Gemäldegalerie's collection since its acquisition and was featured in a 2015 exhibition dedicated to Baldung Grien's religious works at the museum.
The painting is cataloged under the inventory number 2015.0015 and was included in the exhibition 'Hans Baldung Grien: Master of the Reformation' held at the Gemäldegalerie Berlin from March to June 2015.
Context
Hans Baldung Grien painted this religious work in 1539, depicting the Virgin Mary with the infant Christ Child accompanied by an angel, as documented in archival records and held in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin collection since its creation.
Scholarly analysis situates the composition within the artist's mature period, emphasizing its devotional function and stylistic continuity with Renaissance approaches to Madonna and Child imagery.
The painting's provenance and physical attributes, including oil on lime panel dimensions of 91.5 cm by 63.3 cm, are cataloged in institutional records and referenced in art historical studies of 16th-century German painting.
Overview
Created in 1539, this oil painting on panel portrays the Virgin Mary nursing the infant Christ, attended by an angel offering a cluster of grapes. Executed in the German Mannerist style of the late Renaissance, the work is part of the collection of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
Artist & collection
Artist
Hans Baldung (1484 or 1485 – September 1545), called Hans Baldung Grien, (being an early nickname, because of his predilection for the colour green), was a painter, printer, engraver, draftsman, and stained glass…
