Heimsuchung Mariens

The companion panel from the Klosterneuburg altarpiece depicting the Visitation — Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth after the Annunciation — belongs to the Marian narrative cycle immediately following the miraculous conception. The Visitation was among the most emotionally charged scenes in Marian iconography, combining the greeting of two pregnant women whose children would be linked throughout their lives. The Klosterneuburg commission was an Augustinian one, and Augustinian communities had a particular devotion to the Virgin that sustained extensive Marian altarpiece programmes.

The two women's embrace is the compositional centre, with the meeting rendered through careful attention to the physical contact of the greeting. Elizabeth's age and Mary's youth are differentiated in physiognomy and costume. The Master deploys the Austrian late Gothic convention of architecturally framed outdoor scenes — a walled garden or courtyard setting that confines and focuses the narrative.