Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, 'The Virgin and Child', probably about 1493-9

A grave, statuesque young woman gazes down at a positively enormous child, who lies sideways across her lap. Her deep red gown is open to reveal her breast, which she offers to her son – though he seems uninterested. He turns his head away from his mother to look out at the viewer, while playing with the beads which dangle from her scarf.

We know from their delicate haloes that these are the Virgin Mary and infant Christ, but this is a very modern Mary, painted in a newly realistic manner. Boltraffio was Leonardo da Vinci’s most gifted pupil, and imitated his master in style and technique. The Virgin’s serene face, with her downcast eyes, wide mouth and broad, straight nose recalls Leonardo’s facial types, as in The Virgin with the Infant Saint John the Baptist adoring the Christ Child accompanied by an Angel, but is also informed by Boltraffio’s own studies of female heads (such as that in the Biblioteca Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan). The pair have a palpable physical presence and the signs of their divinity are subtle – there are no glittering haloes, carved thrones or attendant angels, as in more conventional representations (like The Virgin and Child with Two Angels by Bergognone). Although idealised, they are more or less life-size in scale and are clearly made of flesh and blood: a simple mother lovingly cradling her son.

This is, however, a complex picture, and Mary is shown in three guises. First, as Queen of Heaven, she is richly dressed, in a red gown, with a gold brooch at her neckline and a dark green cloak over her shoulder. The embroidered scarf which covers her head and is wrapped around her shoulders is so fine that it is almost translucent. The Christ Child is naked except for a delicately embroidered sash which wraps around his waist and shoulder. The green curtain behind them acts both to separate them from the landscape – and so, from the real world – and a kind of cloth of honour. Close inspection reveals the Latin words ‘AVE AVE MA[RIA]’ (‘Hail, Hail Mary’) picked out in gold letters in the sprays of foliage which flank her head and shoulders. Mary’s exposed breast would have called to mind images of the Virgin breastfeeding, such as Lorenzo Veneziano’s The Madonna of Humility with Saints Mark and John the Baptist – though this is definitely not a conventional Virgin of Humility, seated on the ground. She has more in common with Netherlandish pictures of the nursing Mary, such as The Virgin and Child by Dirk Bouts. The composition of the picture – the monumental, front-facing Virgin and outsize Christ creating a solid triangle – together with the solemn expressions of both figures may also have reminded Renaissance viewers of the pietà, in which the mourning Virgin supports the body of her dead son, as in Francesco Francia’s Pietà.

The centrality of the composition and the low viewpoint suggest that this might once have been the central panel of a large altarpiece. It has parallels with other images of the Virgin and Child by Boltraffio, such as those in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest and the Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan. All three paintings owe much to Leonardo’s Litta Madonna (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg).