Benvenuto di Giovanni, 'The Virgin and Child', 1479

The Virgin Mary, regal and refined, is seated on an inlaid stone throne with the Christ Child on her knee. Both are fabulously dressed. The infant Christ wears a purple silk tunic lined in red and dotted with gold, its neckline decorated with pearls and polished stones; more pearls hang at his neck and wrist. The Virgin’s shimmering red silk overdress is also edged with pearls and polished stones, and decorated with gold embroidery. Her blue cloak is edged with gold embroidery, and the upper of her two veils is also embroidered. Both figures sit on tasselled cushions of cloth-of-gold.

This is the central panel from an altarpiece made by Benvenuto di Giovanni, other parts of which are also in our collection. The highly decorative quality of this painting – its shimmering gold, brilliant colours and elegant contours – is typical of Sienese painting of this period. The Virgin’s serenely beautiful face is undisturbed by emotion, unlike the figure in Benvenuto’s Virgin and Child of about 1474–5. The long straight nose, rosebud mouth and downcast eyes reflect contemporary ideals of female beauty and modesty and also echo the faces of the Virgin as depicted by Benvenuto’s older contemporary and collaborator Sano di Pietro.

Although the graceful contour of the Virgin’s blue cloak over her head and shoulders is typically Sienese, Benvenuto was aware of the new spatial and naturalistic interests of many of his contemporaries. The way the Virgin’s cloak falls over her knees suggests a real body underneath, and her dress puddles in deep, crisp folds at her feet and protrudes slightly over the edge of the marble parapet. The embroidered cloth which covers the parapet is edged with a gold fringe, the subtle waves of which give a strongly tactile feel. It casts a shadow on the decoratively veined marble beneath.

On the back of the throne stand two golden-haired angels with multi-coloured wings and stamped and gilded halos; they recall the grace of Sienese painting of the previous century by artists such as Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers. The zigzagging folds of the left-hand angel’s white robe contrast with the softer fall of the other angel’s green overdress, but again both seem to cover three-dimensional forms. The angels‘ bare feet are turned so as to be seen at right angles to the picture plane, and their toes curl over the edges of the throne (though the artist does not seem to have completely worked out how they are balancing there). The angel in white grasps the neck of the instrument, possibly a viol, with convincingly splayed fingers.

This painting shows the Virgin as Queen of Heaven and the most powerful intercessor for humankind, a position she attained on account of her purity. There’s a Latin inscription on the front of the marble parapet beneath her throne: REGINA CELI LETTARE ALLELVIA (’Rejoice the Queen of Heaven, Alleluia‘). These are the first lines of an antiphon to the Virgin sung as part of the Easter liturgy, which ends Ora pro nobis Deum, Alleluia (’Pray to God for us, Alleluia‘). The fringed cloth beneath the throne is repeatedly embroidered with the words ’AVE‘ and ’GR[ATI]A‘, taken from Gabriel’s salutation to the Virgin at the Annunciation: Ave Maria Gratia Plena (’Hail Mary full of Grace'). Mother and son hold a white rose between them, a symbol of the Virgin’s chastity.