Examining late medieval depictions of birth and motherhood involving holy figures, especially those featuring Saint Anne (mother of the Virgin Mary) and the Holy Kinship (the extended family of Jesus), this study reassesses the nature of the female spectatorship of these images, focusing on a group of prayer books associated with the houses of Anjou and Brittany, and the women who used them. Posing ‘questions about genders, spectators, and reception’ (p. 8), this is an ambitious art-historical enquiry