Altarpiece of the Virgin [central panel]: Virgin and Child

Altarpiece of the Virgin, central panel showing the Virgin and Child, painted in 1513 and held at the University of Arizona Museum of Art, demonstrates the remarkable geographic dispersal of Cranach’s altarpiece panels. Originally part of a multi-panel work for a German church, this central devotional image shows the Madonna and Child in the refined style of Cranach’s mature early period. The panel’s journey from a sixteenth-century German church to the American Southwest illustrates the global art market that redistributed European religious art following the secularization of churches, the disruptions of world wars, and the growth of American university museum collections during the twentieth century.

The altarpiece panel demonstrates Cranach's refined devotional style with elegant figure proportions, warm palette, and the careful balancing of intimacy and grandeur appropriate to its altar setting.