The Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth

The Master of 1518 painted this Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth around 1515 for the National Gallery. The meeting of the two pregnant women was one of the most emotionally intimate scenes in the Christian narrative, celebrating the miraculous conceptions of both Jesus and John the Baptist. The tempera medium required careful preparation on a gessoed panel and a disciplined layering technique that produced precise, durable surfaces suited to the intricate detail expected of devotional painting.

The panel presents the encounter with the detailed surface treatment and warm coloring characteristic of the early-sixteenth-century Antwerp school, combining devotional subject matter with naturalistic landscape.