Marie, épouse de Jean de Sedano, en prière avec saint Jean l'Évangéliste ; face externe : Ève, nue

Painted around 1493 during the artist's developing years, this devotional work by Gerard David demonstrates the enduring importance of religious painting in the High Renaissance. As the last great painter of the Bruges school, whose serene devotional works close the era of early Netherlandish painting, Gerard David brings luminous landscape backgrounds to the sacred narrative, creating a work that served both devotional and artistic purposes in fifteenth-century Netherlandish culture. By the 1480s and 1490s, the printing press was spreading artistic ideas across Europe with unprecedented speed, while the discovery of the New World was expanding European horizons.

Gerard David employs gentle coloring and luminous landscape backgrounds to convey the spiritual gravity of the subject. The treatment of the figures shows careful study of earlier masters, while the palette and lighting create the devotional atmosphere the subject demands.