Heilige Hyacinthus aanbidt Maria met het Christuskind 1595 - 1600

Johann Sadeler the First created this engraving, *Heilige Hyacinthus aanbidt Maria met het Christuskind*, which translates to Saint Hyacinth Adoring Mary with the Christ Child, sometime between 1560 and 1600. Here, Sadeler is drawing on Counter-Reformation ideas, which emphasized the importance of saints, like Hyacinth of Poland, as intermediaries to God and vehicles of miraculous deeds. Look at Hyacinth’s humble posture; he kneels before Mary and the infant Christ, who sit on a cloud. The text above confirms that Hyacinth’s prayers are heard by God. This image promotes the idea that prayer and devotion to the saints can lead to divine intervention and salvation, central tenets of the Catholic Church at this time. To understand images such as this, one might look to historical records of religious practices, theological texts, and biographies of saints. In doing so, we gain insight into the artwork’s original meaning and its role in shaping religious beliefs and practices of the time.