Antonio Zanchi (1639-1723), The Birth of the Virgin Mary

Church of Santa Maria del Giglio, Venice

This is an example of a tendency in Renaissance and later images to put Anne in the background and a vigorous young midwife in the foreground. Also in the foreground, one midwife holds a basin for washing the baby and another holds a cloth for wrapping her. Above, God the Father looks down on the scene with his hands on the globe of the earth.

This and a similarly lozenge-shaped painting of the Assumption flank a larger image of the Coronation of the Virgin on the ceiling of the church.

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Photographed at the site by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.