Saint Christopher

The Master of the Antwerp Triptych of the Virgin's Saint Christopher, a pendant to his Saint George, depicts the giant who carried the Christ child across a river — the Christophoros, or Christ-bearer — one of the most popular saints of lay late medieval devotion. Christopher was believed to protect travelers from sudden death, and his image was ubiquitous at city gates, church doorways, and along roads. The very act of seeing his image was considered protective. As part of a triptych ensemble, this panel reflects Antwerp's role as production center for exportable devotional altarpieces in the last decades of the fifteenth century.

Christopher is depicted as a giant figure wading through water, the Christ child seated on his shoulder and a staff in hand. Scale contrast between the enormous saint and the small child is a defining feature of this iconography. The master renders water and distant landscape with Flemish atmospheric attention.