Madonna and Child

This tondo, a tempera painting on panel, shows the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child in a close, intimate view, enclosed within a circular format that concentrates the whole composition. Luca Signorelli painted it around 1492-1493, and it is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, one of the painting collections of the State of Bavaria.

The rocky landscape in the background reveals the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, visible in the softened contours and the way distance is built up. On the right, a nude seated on a rock recalls the Spinario, the famous figure of a youth removing a thorn from his foot. That sculpture was already in the Uffizi in Florence at this date, suggesting that Signorelli knew ancient sculpture well and used it as a source of models.

The painting thus combines a traditional devotional subject with references to classical sculpture and to the landscape innovations of its time, an example of the exchange among Italian artists at the close of the Quattrocento.

Painter

Luca Signorelli

Date

1492

Medium

tempera, panel

Museum

Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich

Genre

religious art

Depicts

boy, Mary, woman, mother, Madonna and Child, Christ Child

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