The
Haller Madonna painting on the obverse depicts
Mary and an athletic-looking, jowly
Jesus, with a window looking out to a distant view. It has therefore been suggested that the painting was commissioned by (or for) Wolf Haller and his wife Ursula Koberger, probably intended for private devotion. The daughter of the printer
Anton Koberger (publisher of the famous
Nuremberg Chronicle, a landmark of
incunabula) had married the young nobleman in 1491. Anton Koberger was Dürer's godfather and neighbor, he may have commissioned the painting as a gift for his daughter who had risen to the patriciate. Wolf Haller initially entered his father-in-law's business as a helper and traveler, but after a few years he fell out with him and fled to Vienna, where he died in 1505. In the mid-20th century the work belonged to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection in
Lugano (
Switzerland). It was acquired by Samuel Kress, who later donated it to the American museum of Washington. When the painting was sold on the antiques market, it was attributed to Bellini; it was later assigned to the German painter due to the style of the landscape and the posture of the child, typical of northern European painting. The child holds a fruit, a symbol of the
Original Sin; the red padding of the cushion, as well as the tassels, perhaps symbolize the blood of
Jesus' Passion. Flucht'', reverse of the panel. The reverse of the painting is also painted, with a picture known as
Lot and His Daughters, showing a Biblical scene of
Lot's flight from
Sodom. It includes a landscape and a seascape with explosions of fire in the background. Another interpretation is that the panel was originally part of a
diptych showing also the donor, with Lot and his children in the left panel. ==See also==