Madonna and Child with Saints

In this devotional painting, to the right of the Madonna and Child are Sts Sebastian and Roch, both of whom were invoked for protection against sickness, and on the left is St Julian the Hospitaler. In the lower register, on either side of the Dead Christ are depicted the twin brothers and physicians Sts Cosmas and Damian, wearing their distinctive physician’s hats and holding their medical instruments. The inclusion of saints associated with protection from pestilence suggests that it was probably painted as a votive panel in thanksgiving for deliverance from a plague.