Madonna and Child in a Glory with an Indulgence and a Prayer c. 1470 - 1480

This is a Northern European woodcut of the Madonna and Child, printed anonymously in the late fifteenth century. It combines an image of the Virgin Mary with a printed prayer and a promise of papal indulgence. This reflects the changing nature of religious devotion at the time. The Church offered the prospect of reduced time in purgatory in exchange for reciting specific prayers, and the new technology of print allowed for the mass production of these promises. Woodcuts like this one made indulgences more accessible to a wider audience, effectively democratizing salvation. This commercialization of faith was a key factor that lead to the Reformation a few decades later. To understand this print better, historians research the theological debates of the period, and analyze the role of the printing press in disseminating religious ideas. The image reminds us that religious art always exists within a specific social, economic and institutional context.