Die heilige Jungfrau im Grünen (The Virgin and Children)

The artwork on display is an artistic steel engraving reproduction of a well-known painting by Raphael Santi (1483–1520), Madonna with Child, also known as the Belvedere Madonna. The painting, created in 1506, is currently held at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The composition portrays the Virgin Mary as a young woman in the Renaissance attire of a wealthy Italian, with an elegant and smooth hairstyle, though barefoot. She is seated on a stone against a flat landscape background, watching over two small, naked boys –Jesus and Saint John the Baptist – playing at her feet with a cross made of sticks. Saint John kneels, offering the cross to Jesus, who eagerly takes it. In the background, beyond a strip of water, hills and the outlines of Jerusalem's buildings are visible. To the left of the buildings, Golgotha dominates the scene, with a cross standing below its summit. The wooden cross with which the children play, along with the massive cross crowning Golgotha, foreshadows the martyrdom of Jesus. The engraving originates from the publication by Adolph Görling (1820–1877), Belvedere or The Galleries of Vienna, a Collection of Steel Engravings of Outstanding Paintings, with Text Including Notes on the Painters and the Schools to Which They Belong, as well as Relevant Historical Novellas and Genre Pieces, published in 1860 by Albert Henry Payne. It is one of the illustrations included in 19th-century albums popular for showcasing the collections of major art museums. The author of the engraving, English engraver William French (1815–1898), created reproductive graphics based on works by both old and contemporary artists. His works included religious and genre scenes, landscapes, and documentary illustrations. French worked for many years in Leipzig at the Englische Kunstanstalt, a publishing house established in 1845 by another Englishman, Albert Henry Payne (1812–1902). Ewa Gwiazdowska