Mary Salome and Zebedee Mary Salome and Zebedee Mary Salome and Zebedee by Tilman Riemenschneider (c.1460–1531) originally formed the right wing of an altarpiece showing the family of the Virgin Mary. The central scene would have shown St Anne seated with her daughter Mary and the Christ Child. Mary Salome was another daughter of St Anne, half sister of the Virgin and wife of Zebedee. Riemenschnieder was one of the most important sculptors in southern Germany in the late fifteenth and sixteenth century. He specialised is carving limewood altarpieces, some of which were painted. Others, such as this example which was carved in Würzburg
Salome (Gospel of James) also other versions of the story in various texts. Greek paintings, as in the illustration here, often labelled the midwife as "Emea" (ΗΜΕΑ, ἡ μαῖα, "the midwife"), and in the West this was sometimes taken to be her name, rather than her job. That Salome is the first, after the midwife, to bear witness to the birth and to recognize Jesus as the Christ, are circumstances that tend to connect her with Salome the disciple. By the High Middle Ages this Salome was often identified with Mary Salome in the West, and therefore regarded as the believing midwife. Salome (Gospel