Italian, Umbrian or Roman, 'The Virgin and Child in a Mandorla with Cherubim', about 1480-1500

The Virgin Mary, depicted as a very young woman, tenderly supports the infant Christ in her arms. Gilded backgrounds like this derived from icon paintings produced in the Byzantine (Eastern Christian) Empire. By the time the picture was made, they had largely been replaced in Italian painting by landscape or architectural backdrops. Here, the striking gold leaf background contrasts with the lifelikeness of the Virgin and Christ – so important in the Renaissance period, when painters aimed to enliven and animate their images of divine figures so that everyday viewers could relate to them. Christ’s blessing gesture, a sign of his divine authority, is also derived from Byzantine art and at odds with his appearance as an ordinary baby.

These somewhat old-fashioned elements might be deliberate references to a particular icon thought to have been painted by the Gospel writer Saint Luke, which was in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome. The icon was thought to be the saint’s painted record of his miraculous vision of the Virgin and Child. It was believed to have miraculous powers and, as a result, was often copied, a tradition that continued in the Renaissance period. Each copy or version was thought to multiply the power of the original, making it a hugely popular subject for later painters, who copied Christ’s pose but varied other elements of the image.

The painter has framed the figures within an almond shape called a mandorla (‘almond’ in Italian), a design which originated in the pre-Renaissance period (see Margarito of Arezzo’s Virgin and Child for example) but remained popular with Renaissance artists. Representing the heavens, the blue background is dotted with golden stars; the bodiless, six-winged heads are Cherubim, the second of the highest order of angels who represent Divine Wisdom.

This work is one of many versions of a design that has sometimes been associated with the Umbrian artist Perugino. Some of these types of pictures are believed to be by Antonio del Massaro, known as il Pastura; he may have been inspired by a particularly revered copy of Saint Luke’s icon in Viterbo (between Rome and Perugia) where he worked. This picture must have looked spectacular in its original setting, probably lit by candles – the gold background is incised with diagonal lines, which would have caught the light and given the appearance of heavenly rays. The gold stars too would have sparkled against the deep blue background of the mandorla. ​