Lot Essay
This extremely well-presented Virgin and Child would appear to date from around 1430-1440, and to have been produced in Swabia. The Virgin held an apple, towards which the Christ Child is shown reaching out, while she simultaneously offers it up to the attention of the faithful. A similar iconography is found in the slightly earlier Madonna by the Master of Seeon in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich. In Italy the Child was often shown playing with a goldfinch for similar symbolic reasons (it was reputed to have been marked by Christ's blood at the Crucifixion), but this iconographic particular was never very popular in Northern Europe.