Anna Selbdritt Private Devotional Altarpiece

Swabia, circa 1490
The Cloisters, New York City

In the center, St. Anne holds a diminutive Virgin Mary in her left arm and a pudgy Christ Child in her right. Images of this type are called Anna Selbdritt, "Anne herself the third." Nixon (146) suggests that the furry clothing on the kneeling male figure may refer to John the Baptist and thus identify the patron's name as Johann.

If the kneeling man is John the Baptist, the kneeling woman could be his mother Elizabeth. Or she could be Emerantia, Anne's mother, who appears in Anna Selbdritt statuary groups in Minden Cathedral and in the Metropolitan Museum

The museum says the figure on the left is St. Catherine of Alexandria, and the sword and crown are consistent with that identification. But Nixon (ibid.) identifies her only as "probably" Catherine. It is unusual for images of this saint to omit her primary attribute, the spiked wheel.

On the right panel is St. Barbara. (See this page for further commentary.) On the base is an image of the "holy face" associated with St. Veronica.

When the box is closed, the figures on the left and right are St. Ursula and St. Dorothy.

Read more about St. Anne, St. Barbara, and St. Catherine of Alexandria.