Holy Family with Coats of Arms of Charles...

Jan Gossaert painted this Holy Family around 1528, depicting the intimate domestic grouping of the Virgin, Christ Child, and Saint Joseph that gained popularity as devotional emphasis shifted toward the humanity of Christ. The painting is in the Saint Louis Art Museum. Madonna and Child panels were central to Renaissance workshop production, meeting constant demand from private patrons, confraternities, and churches who required intimate devotional images for personal piety and public display.

The devotional composition is rendered with attention to the expressive and contemplative qualities that served the painting's function as an aid to prayer and meditation.