Bust of Mary with Crossed Hands 1610 - 1662

This is Wilhelm Traut’s ‘Bust of Mary with Crossed Hands’, an engraving made in Germany around the mid-17th century. Here, the artist uses a highly reproducible medium to share a vision of religious devotion with the wider world. Germany at this time was recovering from the Thirty Years’ War, a conflict which had decimated the population and left a legacy of religious division. It is interesting to note that Traut was working in a printmaking workshop that was run by a painter to the Augsburg Catholic clergy. This image of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a devotional tool. In her piety and quiet suffering, she invites the viewer to reflect on their own relationship to God. The Latin text at the bottom translates as “Hail Mary who has worked much in you”. It is important to remember that the meaning of an artwork is dependent on its historical moment, which is why we need the work of historians who use archives and other resources to interpret an image like this.