Of Herbs and. . . Religious Art?

Well, thanks to Melanie and "C," I have a new project of sorts on my hands. Who would have thought that my child- and motherhood musings would come to this? But in a previous post, the question of representations of the Blessed Virgin Mary mothering was raised, and led me to think of some of the images of Mary breastfeeding that I discovered when I was nursing my now-weaned (at around 18 months) toddler. So I am on a quest. My thought is that images of Mary mothering may not be entirely domestic in nature. We have to consider the subject, and realize that all but the representations that strive to be heretical and blasphemous will be idealized representations of the subject. Hence, no images of Mary changing diapers (sorry, C!). ;) But the mothering images will present the Blessed Mother engaging with the child Jesus, who will usually be portrayed as a child. I will strive to find and post pictures that avoid the formalized, static poses, unless there is something particularly "motherly" being portrayed in a stylistic manner, as in early representations of the Madonna Lactans--the breastfeeding Virgin. While I am very fond of devotional art of all types and periods, I will be restricting this "quest" to fine art portrayals--more or less "canonical" artists, the standard "periods" of art history.

I have found three categories of Virgin Mary portraits that interest me: first, the Madonna Lactans--Mary as Nursing Mother, whom I first discovered after reading about the shrine to Our Lady of La Leche in St. Augustine, FL, which I would like to visit one day. I am also interested in more generic, "motherly" images of Mary--portrayals that emphasize human motherhood. Third, I will be looking for those images that I think best represent Mary in her role as Patroness of Graduate Student Mothers--or didn't you know about that one? I call these portrayals "Our Lady of the Dissertation." You can quote me on that. Here is an example by Botticelli (Also known as Madonna of the Magnificat):

To me, this will signify the effort to produce a great (meaning substantial, not superior) intellectual work while undertaking the great work of parenting.

While searching for images, I came across this one, which I thought might be of interest:
From this site, which specializes in unusual medicinal plant seeds, this is the St. Mary's Milk Thistle:

Silybum marianum
The boiled flower heads of this plant are said to increase milk supply in nursing mothers.

Of course we assume that Mary's milk was abundant, and this herb is akin, apparently, to her blessing on nursing mothers. For those interested, they can't ship these particular seeds to Arkansas, Oregon, or Washington State.

More inspiration soon!