St. Anne with the Virgin and infant Jesus

Jan Joest's Saint Anne with the Virgin and Infant Jesus, painted around 1510 and now at the Columbus Museum of Art, depicts the devotional grouping known as the Anna Selbdritt (Saint Anne with the Virgin and Christ child) — one of the most popular devotional subjects in northern European art of the late medieval and early Renaissance periods. Anne, the mother of Mary, was venerated as the grandmother of Christ and the matriarch of the Holy Family. The grouping of three generations of the holy lineage — Anne, Mary, and the infant Jesus — had particular resonance in an era that venerated holy lineage and family bonds in both religious and social contexts.

The Anna Selbdritt composition organizes the three figures in a compact, interlocking group that emphasizes physical proximity and familial bond. Jan Joest's Netherlandish training produces warm, domestic intimacy in the rendering of the three faces across the span of generations.