With this terra-cotta statue, slightly under life-size, we encounter figures that demonstrate the beginnings of the Italian Renaissance admiration for the human body. Earlier statues in the collection, like the Pisan Annunciation pair, The Archangel Gabriel and The Virgin Annunciate, present the figure as a relatively simple and static form, with drapery arranged in graceful, decorative patterns that tell little about the body it covers. Here, while some decorative folds remain, the clothes work more effectively to describe the form and movement of the body beneath them. Projecting folds wrap around Mary's bent right leg, and deep pockets of space penetrate the sculptural mass, articulating the figure of a young woman with the strength to move vigorously in her heavy garments and support a sturdy child. For a fifteenth-century audience, the child's nudity would have represented Christ's humility in entering the world as a small, poor, and helpless human being.
The mother, whose costume details recall ancient sculpture -- classical sandals, a fillet around the head, and palmette ornament on the sleeve cuffs -- shares much with images conceived by the Florentine master Donatello (1385/86-1466), the greatest sculptor of the early Renaissance.