The Visitation

Jacques Daret's The Visitation, dated around 1434 and now in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, is another panel from the Saint Vaast Altarpiece, depicting the meeting of the pregnant Virgin Mary and her older cousin Elizabeth — both miraculously with child — at Elizabeth's home in the Judean hills. The Visitation was a scene of tender family reunion that also carried profound theological meaning: when Mary greets Elizabeth, the unborn John the Baptist leaps in his mother's womb in recognition of the Savior. Daret renders this intimate moment with the newly naturalistic attention to space, light, and physical presence that he absorbed from the Campin workshop.

Daret places the two women in an outdoor setting with a landscape backdrop, showing the Flemish interest in natural environment as setting that distinguishes his work from the gold-ground tradition. Figures are solid and three-dimensional. The embrace of the two women is rendered with genuine emotional warmth and physical credibility.