Ambrogio Bergognone, 'The Virgin and Child', about 1488-90

The Virgin Mary stands behind a stone parapet, supporting her infant son with one hand; Christ balances on a green cloth lying over the sill. Her halo is inscribed in Latin with the words the Archangel Gabriel said to her at the Annunciation: ‘Hail Mary full of Grace.’

Christ plays with a rosary of red beads which also winds through his mother’s fingers. A small open book rests on the cloth – it is inscribed with the opening verses of Matins, the first of the daily hours of prayer in the Catholic Church. On the right, you can see the large gold ‘D’ of the word ‘Domine’, from ‘Domine labia mea aperis’ (‘Lord open my lips’). These still, calm figures are typical of the work of Ambrogio Bergognone, one of the leading Milanese painters of the late fifteenth century. His style, in particular the silvery-grey skin tones, is reminiscent of the work of Vincenzo Foppa, who was perhaps his teacher.

In the background you can see monks in white habits strolling in the grounds of a large church, one accompanied by a layman and his dog. The monks are Carthusians, and the church is the Certosa (Charterhouse) of Pavia, where Bergognone worked from the late 1480s. You can see the front of the building under construction to the right of the Virgin’s cloth of honour. The unfinished facade is depicted as it appeared in the late 1480s, down to the rough unfinished masonry, the exposed beams and the small arches at the outer edges which were to become the double row of arcades. There is even a temporary shelter for workmen across the front. It’s almost as if Bergognone was actually painting in front of the church itself, 300 years before plein-air painting was made popular by the Impressionists.

The Certosa was one of the largest monasteries in Italy, and one of the most spectacular projects of the Duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro. Bergognone was effectively the Certosa’s house painter in the late 1480s and early 1490s. He produced several altarpieces and frescoes there, including The Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Catherine of Siena, as well as designing inlaid woodwork for the choir stalls. This small panel may well have been made for the private devotional use of one of the monks.