Madonna with the Violet

Madonna with the Violet, at Kolumba—the art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne—shows the Virgin with a violet flower, a detail carrying specific Marian symbolism: the violet, given its purple color and low, humble growth, was associated with the Virgin's humility and with the Passion of Christ whose blood the flower's color evoked. Stefan Lochner's placement of this small symbolic detail in a carefully painted devotional image is characteristic of the layered iconographic literacy of late medieval Cologne painting.

The Virgin holds the violet with a delicate, specific gesture that draws the viewer's eye to the symbolic detail. Lochner renders the flower with botanical specificity—identifiable violet leaves and petals—using the same fine tempera brushwork he applies to the facial modeling of the Madonna and Child.