# Virgin and Child with Saint Anne [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [BENSON, Ambrosius]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Oil on panel, 81 x 59 cm \(ogee top\) ## Commentary In this painting the Virgin and her mother, St Anne, sit side by side. They offer the Christ Child an apple, a reference to the forbidden fruit Eve offered Adam in the Garden of Eden. It is also a symbol of the burden of the sins of mankind that Christ will bear. Benson's elegant figures are painted with rich colours using his typically delicate touch, and both the Virgin and her mother are given equal compositional importance. This results in a superbly balanced image. In the left background, an angel draws water from the Fountain of Life. Benson was renowned for such small scale devotional pieces, teeming with incident and detail. ## Related artworks - [Concert]() - [Lady Anne Stafford]() - [Lamentation]() - [Mary Magdalene]() - [Mary Magdalene]() - [Pietà at the Foot of the Cross]() - [Portrait of a Man Holding a Rose]() - [Rest on the Flight into Egypt]() - [The Lamentation]() - [Virgin and Child]() - [Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine and Barbara]() - [Virgin with the Pear]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()