Madonna of the Rose Bower

Stefan Lochner's Madonna of the Rose Bower, painted around 1440, is the masterpiece of the Cologne School and one of the most beloved paintings in German art. The exquisite work shows the Virgin and Child seated before a golden background amid a garden of roses, attended by angel musicians. Lochner, who died during a plague in 1451, combined the International Gothic style's decorative splendor with a new naturalistic sweetness that Albrecht Dürer admired when he visited Cologne in 1520.

Lochner achieves extraordinary chromatic brilliance with rich ultramarine, vermilion, and gold leaf, combined with delicate figure modeling and meticulously observed botanical details in the rose garden setting.