The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth
Jacopo de' Barbari (Italian, c. 1460/70–c. 1516)
c. 1503
- Medium
- engraving
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Platemark: 12.8 x 16.3 cm (5 1/16 x 6 7/16 in.); Sheet: 13.3 x 16.6 cm (5 1/4 x 6 9/16 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Prints
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
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.
