Madonna and Child

Abstract

This relief of the Virgin and Child is one among many devotional sculptures made of stucco and painted and gilded with expensive-looking materials. The sculpture probably comes from the workshop of Benedetto da Maiano, or is based on his design for the marble relief of the Virgin and Child now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In contrast to the selectively gilded marble relief that is rectangular in shape, possibly suggesting a display on a small, private altar, this stucco relief is coloured naturalistically and cropped into a tondo format, suggesting it was displayed on a wall in the bedchamber of a home. Handbooks from the period suggest that women who looked at images of the Virgin and Child were more likely to conceive a healthy baby boy and also indicate that reliefs were used to instruct young children on proper behaviour. Today, the Virgin and Child are displayed at the Museo degli Innocenti in Florence. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.