Benvenuto di Giovanni, 'The Virgin and Child', about 1474-5

This graceful Virgin Mary seems to embody both motherly love and maternal sorrow. Her beautiful hands hold the Christ Child almost tentatively, as if to prevent him floating away. She gazes sadly at her son, and he too looks out with wary, hooded eyes, as if aware of his future.

Mother and child are both human and divine. Mary’s halo is inscribed in Latin with the angel Gabriel’s greeting at the Annunciation (Luke 1: 28): Ave Maria Gratia Plena Dominus Tecum (‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you’). The child seems weightless, just one foot resting on a gilded cushion. Delicate gold rays emanate from his head but he clasps his mother’s hand with tiny fingers and embraces her with human affection.

Sienese art of the late fifteenth century held on to many of the traditions of an earlier era. Images of the Virgin and Christ Child were the most frequently produced type of painting, and artists sought to retain the devotional and decorative qualities of earlier depictions, such as Duccio’s The Virgin and Child with Saint Dominic and Saint Aurea, and Patriarchs and Prophets, which had been consciously promoted by Sano di Pietro (1405–1481). Painters made multiple variations on the Byzantine glykophilousa or ‘affectionate’ type, which they modernised by updating details of costume and background.

Although he has replaced the traditional gold background with a flowery landscape, Benvenuto di Giovanni, who collaborated with Sano in the 1470s, was more interested in an ideal of feminine beauty than in anatomical accuracy. The Virgin’s thick blonde hair, long straight nose and rosebud mouth all conform to contemporary tastes while harking back to depictions of the Virgin popular in Siena in the previous two centuries. He has also kept the flowing contours of earlier Sienese painting: the unbroken curve of the Virgin’s cloak around her head is derived from Sano and his predecessors.

Newer influences are also evident, however, and Benvenuto has been described as the ‘Sienese infidel’ for leavening the great traditions of Sienese art with ideas taken from a range of sources. The pose and type of the Christ Child, with his high rounded forehead and chubby feet, are modelled upon Donatello’s sculpture, while the muscles of his torso are reminiscent of artists trained by Francesco Squarcione, in particular Andrea Mantegna. Mary appears to stand at a window – a window onto a visionary world, an idea perhaps derived from Netherlandish Renaissance painting.

A picture of the Virgin and Christ Child was an indispensable furnishing of a bedchamber in this period; this small panel was very likely made for such a setting. It probably hung in a tabernacle frame fairly high on the wall, so that the Virgin looked down on the viewer.