The visitation

The Visitation shows the pregnant Mary travelling to visit her cousin Elizabeth — who is also miraculously pregnant with the future John the Baptist — depicted in intimate greeting. The encounter, recorded in Luke's Gospel, was the occasion for the Magnificat, Mary's great hymn of praise. This panel from the Heisterbach Altar at the Alte Pinakothek renders the two women embracing or clasping hands, their pregnancies implicit rather than shown, in the restrained manner of Rhenish devotional painting. The Cologne school's characteristic emotional warmth is well suited to this subject.

Tempera on panel. The Visitation is primarily a two-figure composition — the spatial and emotional relationship between Mary and Elizabeth is the painting's entire subject matter. The Heisterbach master positions them in a landscape or architectural setting that recedes simply behind them, maintaining focus on the encounter.