Madonna with Writing Child and Bishop

This oil on panel by Pinturicchio shows the Virgin seated with the Christ Child standing on a stool, dressed in philosopher's garments and writing in a book that the Virgin hands to him. On the right, a commissioner is portrayed in profile, kneeling, completing the composition. The work was painted around 1495 in Rome, when Pinturicchio was the favourite painter of Pope Alexander VI, and the commission is thought to have come from Francisco Borgia, the pope's cousin, for the family chapel in the collegiate church of Xàtiva in Spain. For a long time it was regarded as the work of the artist's assistants, because of 19th-century repainting and yellowed varnish; later restoration revealed the delicacy of the execution and the richness typical of Pinturicchio's style. Some features reflect the patron's taste, such as the Gothic golden background and the flowers. The small birds are read as symbols of Christ's Passion. Jesus's dalmatic and pallium may draw on late antique and medieval mosaics of the region, unlike the thin veils common in contemporary Umbrian and Tuscan painting.

Painter

Pinturicchio

Date

1495

Medium

oil paint, panel

Dimensions

158 × 77 cm

Museum

Museu de Belles Arts de València, Valencia

Genre

religious art

Depicts

boy, Mary, aureola, woman, Christ Child

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