Mária születése a keszthelyi ferences templomban

The late fourteenth-century fresco cycle of the former Franciscan church in Keszthely is among the most significant murals of medieval Hungary. Discovered in 1974, the art historical analysis was carried out by Mária Prokopp. She recognized the subject of the upper row as the life of the Holy Virgin. Her identification of the scene on the south-eastern wall as the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple is unquestionable.
However, the subject of the eastern wall seems to be the Birth of the Virgin. The compositions of both images go back to Sienese prototypes as the lost frescos of the Lorenzetti brothers on the façade of the Ospedale della Scala in Siena and its copies, especially the panels of Andrea di Bartolo in Washington. The composition of the Birth is a reduced version and in this way it is a combination of the Italian and the Northern iconographic tradition. This observation is close to the suggestion about the double source of the style of the frescos made by Mária Prokopp.