Madonna with child

This oil-on-panel painting by Pinturicchio, now in the Pinacoteca Civica Padre Pietro Tacchi Venturi in San Severino Marche, shows the Virgin seated with the Christ Child in her lap. He holds a cross-topped orb in his left hand, a symbol of his divine power over the earth, and blesses with his right hand a kneeling patron seen in profile, whose face is rendered with a precision that reveals the painter's study of Flemish art. Unlike contemporary Umbrian and Tuscan images, the Child is not semi-nude but dressed in a richly decorated dalmatic and pallium, perhaps under the influence of Byzantine mosaics in Rome. Two angels frame the scene: one meets the viewer's eye directly, while the other tilts its head toward the blessing gesture. The landscape recalls Umbrian painting, with hills and tiny figures, and on the left a fanciful arch frames passing horsemen and soldiers, possibly an allusion to the Massacre of the Innocents. The work is thought to commemorate a local cleric's appointment as prior in 1488. The Virgin's figure later served the painter as a model for other works.

Painter

Pinturicchio

Date

1490

Medium

tempera, panel

Dimensions

143 × 70 cm

Museum

Pinacoteca civica Tacchi-Venturi, San Severino Marche

Genre

religious art

Depicts

boy, Mary, woman, mother, Christ Child

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