The Museum's permanent collection features a variety of works from Europe and North America. The Medieval and Early Rennaissance gallery contains artworks with Christian subjects. Most of the works displayed here have been housed in churches. In fact, the frames of several of the works echo church architecture.

Religious works often place a special emphasis on symbolism. For example, the goldfinch that the Christ Child is holding in a Fourteenth-century painting of the Madonna and Child is a bird that feeds only on thistle seeds. Therefore, the goldfinch was considered a symbol of Christ's crown of thorns.