Dr. Laurinda Dixon

Throughout art history, the Virgin Mary always appears as a paragon of womanhood - virtuous, beautiful, devout, humble, and of course, chaste. In the Renaissance, her traditional roles as the Virgin Annunciate, Madonna lactans (suckling her child), and queen of Heaven expanded to include those of needleworker and weaver. In art, she spins, weaves, embroiders, and knits, all in selfless service to God and her family. Artists depicted these activities with technical exactitude and humble familiarity, as essential tasks that defined women’s routine domestic duties. Why this change? Is there Biblical precedent for depicting Mary as consummate needleworker? In a larger sense, what did these images communicate to ordinary women in the Renaissance and beyond?