Madonna of the Dry Tree

Madonna of the Dry Tree or Our Lady of the Barren Tree^[1] is a small oil-on-oak panel painting dated c. 1462–1465, attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. Its dramatic imagery shows the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child within a tree, surrounded by black, withered branches forming a crown of thorns.

The panel is unsigned and undated. It was unattributed until 1919, when the art historian Grete Ring associated its iconography and painterly style with Christus and through detailed examination of its imagery assigned its current title.

The circumstances of its commission are unknown, although its size indicates it was intended for private devotion. Its stark and haunting imagery is thought to be derived from the Book of Ezekiel, with the Dry Tree (or solitary tree) representing a withered and dead version of the Garden of Eden's Tree of Knowledge, brought back to life by the presence of the Virgin and Christ. The fifteen golden A-shaped letters hanging from its branches may represent the first letter of the Angelus, Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae, or the Ave Maria. The iconography is presumed to be related to the devotions of Confraternity of Our Lady of the Dry Tree of Bruges, which Petrus Christus and his wife Gaudicine joined so as to integrate themselves into the city's upper realms of society.