Mary and Elizabeth with Jesus and John the Baptist

Painted in 1825 and held at the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, Mary and Elizabeth with Jesus and John the Baptist belongs to a well-established devotional subject type — the Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, or the Visitation — that Overbeck treated through his characteristic Nazarene lens. By 1825 the Brotherhood's original communal intensity had dispersed somewhat as members returned to Germany or pursued independent careers, but Overbeck remained in Rome, committed to his vision without compromise. The subject allowed him to paint two adult female figures alongside two infant boys, a grouping that combined maternal tenderness with prophetic significance — John as forerunner to Jesus, Elizabeth as witness to the Incarnation. The Neue Pinakothek, established by Ludwig I of Bavaria as a museum of contemporary art, acquired Overbeck's work as part of its deliberate effort to represent the full range of German Romantic painting.

Overbeck's handling of the children alongside the adult figures demonstrates his mature control of figural scale relationships and his ability to vary touch slightly when representing infant versus adult forms. The landscape or interior setting behind the figures would be treated as a symbolic backdrop rather than convincing space, consistent with his Quattrocento sources.