Provenance

Santa Croce, Florence

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A woman with pale skin holds a baby in the crook of her left arm, on our right, against a gold background in this vertical, arched wooden panel. The woman is shown from the waist up with her body angled slightly to our right. She wears a dark blue mantle that drapes over her head and shoulders, and across her body. The garment has a gold border and celery-green lining where it turns over at her wrists and chest. There is a gold starburst-like symbol on her right shoulder, our left, and she holds a stylized rose with her right hand. The baby is nude except for a translucent white cloth, also edged with a gold border, wrapped around his waist and legs. His face and body look more like a small man than a baby, but there are baby-like rolls at his wrists. He has blond wavy hair. He grips the woman's forefinger on the hand that holds his body, and he reaches for the rose she holds with his other hand. The gold background is punched to create halos around their heads and decorative bands along the inner edge of the curving, arched top.
Giotto, Madonna and Child, c. 1310/1315, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.256

Madonna and Child

Giotto · c. 1310/1315 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.256