Healing the Daughter of the Woman of Canaan
(Matt. 15:21–28; Mark 7:24–30)

In the gentile district of Tyre and Sidon Christ was approached by a Canaanite woman who begged him to cure her daughter, "possessed of an unclean spirit." The disciples were for turning her away, and at first Christ was of the same mind, saying to her that his mission was to the Jews alone: "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." The woman neatly answered him in the same metaphor: "Yet the dogs eat the scraps that fall from their masters' table." When she returned home she found her daughter cured. The woman is depicted kneeling at the feet of Christ, around whom stand some of the disciples, their expressions registering disapproval. She may be pointing at a dog, an animal only rarely found in Christian art. This motif helps to distinguish the theme from the similar Woman with an Issue of Blood.