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Your galleryThe Madonna of the Rosary
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Follow the wreath of flowers around the Virgin, then look down at the crown left on the ground between the two kneeling groups.
The rosary is a cycle of prayers counted on a string of beads. Israhel van Meckenem shows the crowned Virgin and Child inside a blaze of rays and a wreath of flowers, with angels in the corners holding shields that show Christ’s wounds, and believers kneeling below: churchmen on the left and, on the right, a knight in armor who has laid his crown on the ground. He signed the plate with his first name and with Bocholt, the town where he died in 1503.
Engraving on ivory laid paper · Sheet: 27.1 × 18.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Late Gothic and Early Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Madonna of the Rosary
- Artist
- Israhel van Meckenem the Younger German, c. 1440/45-1503
- Date
- c. 1480
- Medium
- Engraving on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 27.1 × 18.5 cm (10 11/16 × 7 5/16 in.)
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.