Workshop of Raffaellino del Garbo, 'The Virgin and Child with Two Angels', about 1500-1510

The Virgin Mary stands barefoot on a narrow patch of grass, dangerously close to the edge of a rocky slope, accompanied by two angels in billowing draperies. As our gaze moves upwards, we are calmed by the Christ Child sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. His right elbow is propped up against her breast, while a book provides additional support. Mary inclines her head, her chin gently touching the curly hair of her son. The angel on the right holds his panpipes up before him, seemingly interrupted in his playing. It may be their sound, accompanied by the lyre of the other angel, that have sent the infant Christ to sleep. A mountainous landscape lined with bushy trees opens out into the distance, adding to the sense of tranquillity that permeates the picture.

Circular paintings, also known as tondi, were hugely popular in Renaissance Florence. The city’s leading painters – among them Sandro Botticelli, Filippino Lippi and Lorenzo di Credi – specialised in their production (for another example, see The Virgin and Child with Saint John and an Angel). Most depict the Virgin and Christ Child, sometimes with angels, the young Saint John the Baptist or other saints. Made as a visual aid for prayer, these tondi often decorated the bedrooms of their original owners, although examples were placed in public buildings, guildhalls and the meeting places of religious confraternities. This tondo, possibly by Raffaellino del Garbo, and certainly made in his workshop, stands out for its tender portrayal of the relationship between the Virgin Mary and Christ. The composition seems to have been much appreciated at the time as there is an almost identical version in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. The vibrant reds, blues and greens of the Berlin version give an indication of the colours that sit underneath the yellowed varnish of the National Gallery’s picture.

Following his apprenticeship with the celebrated painter Filippino Lippi, whom he assisted in a famous fresco cycle in the Roman church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, Raffaellino quickly established himself as one of the major painters of altarpieces and devotional paintings in Florence in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The biographer Giorgio Vasari praised the artist’s early work and owned several of his drawings, but criticised his later decline. Indeed, in spite of Raffaellino’s prolific output, he is best known today for having trained Andrea del Sarto and Bronzino, whose fame eclipsed his own.