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The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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A young woman sitting with a nude infant lying in her lap is flanked on either side by an older woman to our left and an elderly man with a nude young boy to our right in this vertical painting. They all have pale skin tinged with blue. At the center, the young woman, Mary, is draped in a cobalt-blue mantle that partially covers her head and falls to her shoulders to wrap around a dusky rose-pink gown. The mantle is pushed back from one side of her head, revealing dark brown hair. Her right arm embraces the shoulders of the old woman standing next to her, to our left, who leans toward Mary. A tangerine-orange cloak wraps around the older woman and her hair is covered by a white cowl. Both women have long faces and noses with deep set eyes under thick arched brows, and they gaze down at the infant. The mostly bald, pudgy baby lies across a white piece of fabric, two corners of which are held up by the older woman. Another young boy stands alongside Mary to our right. He faces us, holding a basket or glass bowl containing oval-shaped caramel-brown objects the size of figs in one hand. His elongated head is crowned with tawny brown hair, and his face turns away from the infant to gaze off to our right. One finger of his left hand, on our right, rests alongside his rose-red lips. The elderly man stands behind him, leaning over Mary’s shoulder to look at the older woman. We see him from the waist up with a golden-yellow cloak layered over an olive-green vest, and the arm we see is clad in a white sleeve. The group takes up most of the height of the composition and are crowded together against an azure-blue sky swirling with thin gray and white clouds. The scene is painted largely with long strokes of saturated color. The dark gray ground below is painted with sketchy strokes of white, blue, and pink.
El Greco, The Holy Family with Saint Anne and the Infant John the Baptist, c. 1595/1600, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1959.9.4

The Holy Family with Saint Anne and the Infant John the Baptist

El Greco · c. 1595/1600 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1959.9.4

Shown from the shoulders up, a man with peachy skin looks off to our left as he holds the feathered end of an arrow up in a hand resting along the bottom edge of this vertical portrait painting. Shown against a marine-blue background, he looks into the distance with hazel eyes under bushy eyebrows. He has a long, bumped nose, and his full, pale pink lips are closed. His round cheeks are tinged with pink, and there is a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his mouth and jawline. Chestnut-brown, curly hair hangs to the base of his neck, and wispy curls fall across his forehead from under his tall, chocolate-brown cap. The cap has a small gold pin high over the ear we can see. The man wears a garnet-red jacket with a black collar over a white collarless shirt decorated with five black, narrow bands below the neckline. The fingers of his right hand, to our left, rest with the fingertips braced along on the bottom edge of the painting, as if along a ledge. He pinches the shaft of an arrow with his index finger and thumb, so we see the sienna-brown feathers. He wears a gold ring embedded with a small blue gem near the first knuckle of his ring finger.
Hans Memling, Portrait of a Man with an Arrow, c. 1470/1475, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.42

Portrait of a Man with an Arrow

Hans Memling · c. 1470/1475 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.42

Annibale Carracci, Christ Crowned with Thorns, 1606, etching on laid paper, Gift of Kate Ganz, 2008.104.14

Christ Crowned with Thorns

Annibale Carracci · 1606 · etching on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2008.104.14

Annibale Carracci, Saint Jerome, 1583/1585, engraving on laid paper, Gift of Kate Ganz, 2008.104.2

Saint Jerome

Annibale Carracci · 1583/1585 · engraving on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2008.104.2

This print shows a woman standing with her feet together and her hands clasped at her chest. She appears to be floating in the air, her feet hovering above the rocky outcrop at the bottom of the print. She is nude, but her long, flowing hair wraps across her body, covering her groin and one of her breasts. She looks off to the left, her head slightly tilted, and there is a halo behind her head that is radiating light. Several small cherub-like figures with wings surround the woman, appearing to support her and lift her upwards. The background below her includes hills, rocks, and trees by a wide body of water. On the left, a robed person in the distance looks upward, observing her ascent. The sky is empty except for a few small birds.
Albrecht Dürer, The Elevation of Saint Mary Magdalene, c. 1504/1505, woodcut on laid paper, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.3598

The Elevation of Saint Mary Magdalene

Albrecht Dürer · c. 1504/1505 · woodcut on laid paper ·  Accession ID  1943.3.3598

A kneeling woman and a sitting man are on either side of a nude baby boy as a bearded man, God, and winged angels hover in the sky over a deep landscape. This vertical panel has a rounded top. The people all have pale skin with pink cheeks, white-blond or gray hair, and wear robes in shades of carnation pink, azure blue, and buttercup yellow. The woman is larger in scale than the man sitting opposite her, and she has notably pale, white-colored skin. In the right half of the painting, she kneels facing inward over the baby with her palm and fingertips together in front of her chest. She looks down and to our left, past the baby, with pale gray eyes under thin brows. She has a long, delicate nose, thin lips, and a pointed chin. Her ice-blond hair is pulled up around a white band, and curls fall down past her shoulders. Her blue cloak is lined with white. The baby lies facing her on one end of the cloak, propped up on blue and dark pink pillows. The baby has a round pate and tiny features. He crosses his ankles and holds one hand up with the first two fingers raised. The man sitting to the left is balding with gray hair and a curly beard. His wide-set eyes slope down at the outer corners, and he looks down and to the right with his lips parted. He is barefoot and holds a short staff in one hand. The woman, baby, and man have disk-like gold halos. A canteen hangs from the low branch of a tree, and a sack lies at its foot just beyond the man. The ruins of a red brick arch and a shorn tree trunk support a thatched roof near the left edge of the painting. The rocky ground gives way to grassy hills dotted with trees in the background. A river winds to the horizon, which comes over halfway up the composition. Two birds float on the water and two bridges span it. A conical hill rises along the right edge of the painting. Against a pale blue sky in the top third, God has a beard, a lined forehead, and hooded eyes. He floats supported and surrounded by fourteen youths with short, gold wings. Seemingly countless winged baby heads painted in tones of cobalt blue create a cloud of its own behind God and the youths. Four older angels hover below. Two, who wear pink, have their hands together in prayer and the other two, wearing blue or black, cross their arms.
Francesco di Giorgio Martini, The Nativity, with God the Father Surrounded by Angels and Cherubim, c. 1470, tempera on panel, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of George Blumenthal, 1941.100.2; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.8 , 1952.5.8.combined

The Nativity, with God the Father Surrounded by Angels and Cherubim

Francesco di Giorgio Martini · c. 1470 · tempera on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.8.combined