252 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



places in His hand the apple by which mankind 

 is to be redeemed, not lost, since she, by giving 

 Him a human body, had made that redemption 

 possible. 



In the Corsini Gallery ' there is a picture, 

 attributed to Hugo van der Goes, in which 

 Mother and Child hold each a fruit. At first 

 sight it seems as if it were a presentment in 

 one picture of Christ as the second Adam, and 

 Mary as the second Eve, with a doubling of the 

 symbolism of the apple which would be illogical. 

 But the fruit held by Mary is distinctly a pear, 

 that held by Christ apparently an apple. The 

 artist has, therefore, discriminated between the 

 apple of damnation and the sweeter, mellower 

 fruit, which may be the symbol of Redemption, 

 for the Holy Child seems to be in the act of 

 exchanging one for the other. 



This may possibly also explain the thought 

 in the mind of the French ivory-cutters of the 

 fourteenth century, for they, too, not infre- 

 quently, placed a small round fruit resembhng 

 an apple in the hand of the Infant Christ and 

 a larger pear-shaped fruit in that of His mother, 



' Florence. 



