Engraving by Albrecht Dürer, representing the Virgin Mary crouching on a crescent moon, dating to about 1510 and now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA.
This iconographic pattern is inspired by a passage from the Book of Revelation (12, 1): “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars”. It appears already around 1345 with the Madonna dell’Umiltà (“Our Lady of Humility”) by artist Roberto d’Oderisio, and shall have an ample diffusion in the depiction of the Virgin in popular art.
In this case, too, it is surely relevant the influence of the iconography of several female divinities from Antiquity, showing a nocturnal and moon-related aspect, like Isis, Cybele, and Diana, who were often represented with the attribute of a crescent moon.


[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_The_Madonna_on_the_Crescent_%28NGA_1943.3.3628%29.jpg]