Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child - Upper Rhine Late 13th century

Important elm-wood sculpture carved in very high relief and hollowed at the back. Anne is seated in majesty, veil and wimple framing a composed face, holding at her left the blessing Child and at her right the crowned adolescent Virgin. This is an early iconography of the theme, with a hierarchy of scale typical of Upper Rhenish prototypes of the late 13th century. The use of elm accords with practices of workshops from the Upper Rhine / Lake Constance region. The drapery is treated in broken planes and shallow fluting, with V-shaped breaks over the knees. The line remains more graphic than naturalistic, a sign of the Romanesque–Gothic transition before the softening of the 14th century.