ABSTRACT
By the time this woodcut was printed in 1525, the Protestant Reformation was well underway. A decade previously, a pious laywoman looking for a paradigm of female behavior might have looked to an Anna Selbdritt or an image of the Holy Kinship. As discussed in previous chapters, St. Anne appealed to laywomen by exemplifying what it meant to be a good wife and mother who was involved in the world and in the affairs of her family, while also providing men an example of a loving grandmother and powerful matron who could actively protect and benefit them. Woensam’s allegorical construction offers a different model of female virtue strongly influenced by new Protestant ideas. Rather than suggesting a saint for his exemplary model, Woensam depicts an ordinary laywoman. The text foregrounds self-regulation of female speaking, looking, and listening rather than active engagement and protection of those within her family. Within the image, Jesus is present not as a baby with his mother and grandmother, but as an adult on the cross attached to a mirror. The “wise woman” who carries the mirror informs the viewer that “I will also reject pride/and will look into this mirror/ by which God saved us/It is my advice to you women to do this.”4 The crucifix on the mirror reinscribed a traditional symbol of vanity as a Christian meditative object. Where St. Anne held, taught, and cared for her infant grandson, and served as a matriarch to the Holy Kinship, the “wise woman” of 1525 gazes at an adult, crucified Christ as a symbol of salvation.
