Painting titled ‘The Virgin and Child in the Garden’ in the style of Martin Schongauer (1448-1491) a German engraver and painter. Dated 15th Century. In this small painting, the Virgin Mary and infant Christ are seated in an enclosed garden (known in Latin as a hortus conclusus, it traditionally symbolised Mary’s virginity). She holds out a flower to her son – a ‘pink’, also known as a dianthus (meaning ‘flower of God’ in Latin). It was often included in images of the Virgin and Child as a reference to the Crucifixion, specifically the nails that fastened Christ to the Cross: its scent resembles that of cloves, which look like little nails.

It is possible this painting was made by members of Schongauer’s workshop. Schongauer was an Alsatian engraver and painter. He was the most important printmaker north of the Alps before Albrecht Dürer, a younger artist who collected his work. Schongauer is the first German painter to be a significant engraver, although he seems to have had the family background and training in goldsmithing which was usual for early engravers.

MAYTIME the month of Mary

A Reading from Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

With the same cheerful joy our good Lord looked down to his right and thereby brought to mind the place where our Lady was standing during his passion. ‘Do you want to see her?’ he said, saying in effect, ‘I know quite well you want to see my blessed Mother, for, after myself, she is the greatest joy I can show you, and most like me and worthy of me. Of all my creation, she is the most desirable sight.’ And because of his great, wonderful, unique love for this sweet maiden, his blessed Mother our Lady Saint Mary, he showed her to be rejoicing greatly. This is the meaning of the sweet words. It was as if he were saying, ‘Do you want to see how I love her, so that you can rejoice with me in my love for her, and hers for me?’ Here – to understand this word further – our Lord God is speaking to all who are going to be saved, as it were to all humankind in the person of one individual. He is saying, ‘Can you see in her how greatly you are loved? For love of you made her so exalted, so noble, so worthy. This pleases me, and I want it to please you too.’ For after himself she is the most blessed of all sights. But, for all that, I am not expected to want to see her physically present here on earth, but rather to see the virtues of her blessed soul, her truth, her wisdom, her charity, so that I can learn to know myself, and reverently fear my God. When our good Lord had showed me this and said, ‘Do you want to see her?’ I answered, ‘Yes, good Lord, thank you very much. Yes, good Lord, if it is your will.’ I prayed this often, and I thought I was going to see her in person. But I did not see her in this way. Jesus, in that word, gave me a spiritual sight of her. Just as I had seen her before, lowly and unaffected, so now he showed her, exalted, noble, glorious, and pleasing to him above all creation. He wills it to be known that all who delight in him should delight in her too, with the same pleasure he has in her, and she in him. To help understand it better he gave this example. If you love one particular thing above everything else, you wi11try to make everyone else love and like what it is you love so greatly. When Jesus said, ‘Do you want to see her?’ I thought it was the nicest word about her that he could possibly have said, together with the spiritual revelation that he gave me of her. Except in the case of our Lady, Saint Mary, our Lord showed me no one specially – and her he showed three times. The first occasion was when she was big with child, the second sorrowing under the cross, and the third as she is now, delightful, glorious, and rejoicing.

Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, 25; ET by Clifton Walters, London, 1966, pp. 101-2