Madonna and Child with God the Father Blessing and Angels

c. 1370/1375

Jacopo di Cione

Painter, Florentine, c. 1340 - c. 1400?

A woman sitting on a pillow on the floor holds a baby stretched stiffly across her lap, and both are shown against a gold background in this arched, vertical painting. Ranks of four winged angels float to each side and a man hovers overhead, above a dove that flies down toward the baby. All the people have light skin, strawberry-blond hair, and their heads are surrounded by gold halos. The woman at the center wears a royal-blue, hooded cloak over a dusky rose-pink dress. The cloak is edged with gold, and there is a gold starburst on each shoulder. Her dress is covered with gold, scrolling vines and geometric patterns. She sits facing us with her head tipped to her right, our left, and she gazes down at the baby with narrowed, almond-shaped, light brown eyes. She has a long, delicate nose and her small pink lips are closed. The baby has chubby, pink cheeks but his body is more like that of an adult. He lies stiffly across the woman’s lap, wrapped in shimmering gold fabric that leaves his bare feet, chest, and arms exposed. He looks at us as he reaches up and touches the woman’s breast, which emerges from her dress near her right shoulder. He has snail-like curls, medium brown eyes, a rounded nose, and small, pink lips. The pillow the woman sits on has tassels in the corners. The muted pink floor is veined with sage green. A book with a scarlet-red cover and gilded edges sits nearby. On either side of the woman, four winged angels cluster in two rows of two, near the arched top of the panel. The angels all have coral-pink diadems in long blond hair, and they look toward the woman in profile with wrists crossed against their chests or held together in prayer. They wear robes in ivory white, brick red, or royal blue, all decorated throughout with gold patterns. Emerging from a narrow band of clouds to the upper right, a bearded man wearing a blue robe over a pink garment, also both edged with gold, floats above the woman with his right hand extended. He holds a book in his other hand. The white dove below is connected to the man's extended right hand by long lines, like stylized rays of light. Red shows through some cracks and worn areas of the gleaming gold background.

Media Options

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The Virgin sits directly on the ground, eschewing the throne that is her right as Queen of Heaven. The Madonna of Humility, as this type of representation is called, appeared at the end of the Middle Ages as devotion to Mary took on a greater personal, human dimension. The infant’s reaching for her breast to nurse is a natural gesture—and layered with symbolism. At a time when all but the poorest families sent their children to wet nurses, his gesture reinforces the idea of Mary’s humility. Since milk was believed to be blood that had been converted in the mother’s body, the artist is evoking Jesus’s sacrifice and the sacrament of communion. And, because the Virgin was associated with the Church itself, the nursing allusion points further to the sustenance given to the faithful by the Church, emphasized by Mary’s large, sheltering body.

Jacopo di Cione made a strong effort to create depth and to replicate the physical world in many areas of this painting. The gradual darkening of the multicolored marble floor subtly accentuates its extension into depth, a spatial effect sometimes called “pseudo-perspective.” In particular, the foreshortened prayer book and the undulating lower hem of the Virgin’s mantle are painted with a deliberate illusionism: they project beyond the front edge of the floor, and seem to extend into the real space of the spectator.

The Madonna of Humility was an especially popular subject in 14th-century Florence, and this painting seems to have been a model for several others—which suggests that Jacopo’s painting originally occupied a prominent place in the city. Jacopo was the younger brother of two painters, Andrea (called Orcagna) and Nardo di Cione, who were regarded by contemporaries as the best in Florence. The National Gallery of Art also owns a small, jewel-like altarpiece by Nardo, Madonna and Child, with Saints Peter and John the Evangelist, and Man of Sorrows, who named Jacopo as his heir.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 2

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 139.8 × 67.5 cm (55 1/16 × 26 9/16 in.)
    overall: 141.2 × 69 × 1.5 cm (55 9/16 × 27 3/16 × 9/16 in.)
    framed: 156.8 x 84.1 x 6.7 cm (61 3/4 x 33 1/8 x 2 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.18

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Madonna and Child with God the Father Blessing and Angels, c. 1370/1375

This horizontal painting is made up of three parts: in the center square panel, a woman reclines under a wooden shelter set into a rocky cave, which is surrounded by angels, and narrower wings to either side are each occupied by a standing man. All the people have pale skin, which is tinged with faint green. The three panels are joined with a gold frame, and the gold background behind the central scene and the men in the side panels are covered with a noticeable network of cracks. In the central panel, a cobalt-blue robe nearly envelopes the reclining woman’s body; this is Mary. It covers her head and falls open where she crosses her wrists over her chest to show a pink garment underneath. A flat gold halo encircles her head ,and her body is surrounded by a field of crimson red, almost like an aura. She rests under a wooden structure with a pitched roof, which is surrounded by craggy, barren rock. A swaddled infant lies in a rectangular, tray-like manger. The infant’s head is also surrounded by a gold halo. Fine gold rays emanate down into the structure from a star just above the peak of the roof. A bull and a donkey look down at the baby from the far side of the manger. The interior of the structure behind them is black. In a smaller scale, two women wash a haloed infant in a tub in front of the rocky cave near the lower left corner of this panel. A man with a white beard and hair sits to our left of Mary, holding a pink cloak at his throat and looking toward the infant. Above and around the rocks, seven winged and haloed angels cluster on each side. One angel to the right presents a scroll with black writing to two men accompanied by a dog and several sheep in the lower right. The man in the panel to the left, Isaiah, has a gray beard and long, wavy hair, and he wears a lilac-purple cloak draped over a coral-orange robe. In his right hand, on our left, he holds an unfurled scroll with large black lettering. His other hand is raised with one finger pointing upward. He looks to our left, away from the central scene. On the right, Ezekiel, echoes Isaiah's pose. Ezekiel holds an open scroll with his left hand, on our right, and his other hand is raised. He also wears a coral-colored robe, but his is overlaid with a blue cloak. His receding hair is short and brown, as is his beard. Like Isaiah, he takes up most of the height of the panel and gazes to our left, toward the central panel.

Scholarly Series:  Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Art market, Florence; Philip Lehman [1861-1947], New York, by 1917;[1] sold September 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] Osvald Sirén (1917) cites the painting as formerly belonging to a Florentine art dealer; the terminus post quem for Lehman's purchase might be 1911, the year in which he began his activity as a collector. Robert Lehman, The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings, Paris, 1928: Introduction, n.p.
[2] Lehman 1928, no. 5. The bill of sale between Robert Lehman and the Kress Foundation for three paintings, including Madonna and Child with Angels, is dated 15 September 1943 (copy in NGA curatorial files). The documents concerning the 1943 sale indicate that Philip Lehman’s son Robert Lehman (1892-1963) was the owner of the paintings, but it is not clear in the Lehman Collection archives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, whether Robert made the sale for his father or on his own behalf. See Laurence Kanter’s e-mail of 6 May 2011, about ownership of the Lehman collection, in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1363.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1917

  • Loan Exhibition of Italian Primitives, F. Kleinberger Galleries, New York, 1917, no. 5, repro.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946.

Bibliography

1907

  • Gronau, Hans Dietrich. "Jacopo di Cione." In Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Edited by Ulrich Thieme, Felix Becker and Hans Vollmer. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 26(1932):39.

1917

  • Sirén, Osvald. Giotto and Some of His Followers. 2 vols. Translated by Frederic Schenck. Cambridge, 1917: 1:220, 224, 225, 275; 2:pl. 187.

1919

  • Offner, Richard. "Italian Pictures at the New York Historical Society and Elsewhere." Art in America 7 (1919): 14.

1923

  • Marle, Raimond van. The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. 19 vols. The Hague, 1923-1938: 3(1924):466-468; 5(1925):479, fig. 284.

1928

  • Lehman, Robert. The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings. Paris, 1928: no. V, repro.

1930

  • Mayer, August L. "Die Sammlung Philip Lehman." Pantheon 5 (1930): 113.

  • Salmi, Mario. "Review of L’arte nelle Marche dalle origini cristiane alla fine del Gotico by Luigi Serra." Rivista d’arte 12 (1930): 309.

  • Berenson, Bernard. "Quadri senza casa. Il Trecento fiorentino, 2." Dedalo 11 (1930-1931): 1057.

1931

  • Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: no. 43, repro..

1932

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 275.

1933

  • Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 1:no. 53, repro.

  • Gronau, Hans Dietrich. "Lorenzo di Bicci: ein Rekonstruktionsversuch." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 4 (1933): 114.

1936

  • Berenson, Bernard. Pitture italiane del rinascimento: catalogo dei principali artisti e delle loro opere con un indice dei luoghi. Translated by Emilio Cecchi. Milan, 1936: 236.

  • Meiss, Millard. "The Madonna of Humility." The Art Bulletin 18 (1936): 447, fig. 10.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 15, repro.

1946

  • Friedmann, Herbert. The Symbolic Goldfinch. Its History and Significance in European Devotional Art. Washington, DC, 1946: 145.

1948

  • Antal, Frederick. Florentine Painting and its Social Background: The Bourgeois Republic before Cosimo de’ Medici’s Advent to Power, XIV and XV Centuries. London, 1948: 145, 194, 225 nn. 126-127, pl. 44a.

1951

  • Toesca, Pietro. Il Trecento. Storia dell’arte italiana, 2. Turin, 1951: 637 n. 157.

  • Meiss, Millard. Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death. Princeton, 1951: 31, 42, 138, fig. 140.

1954

  • Shorr, Dorothy C. The Christ Child in Devotional Images in Italy During the XIV Century. New York, 1954: 74, 75, repro. 80.

1956

  • Laclotte, Michel. De Giotto à Bellini: les primitifs italiens dans les musées de France. Exh. cat. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, 1956: 17.

1957

  • Levi D'Ancona, Mirella. "Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci e il Maestro delle Canzoni. Due miniatori trecenteschi della scuola di S. Maria degli Angeli a Firenze." Rivista d’arte 32 (1957): 11, 13.

  • Steinweg, Klara. "Die Kreuzigung Petri des Jacopo di Cione in der Pinacoteca Vaticana." Rendiconti. Pontificia Accademia romana di archeologia 30-31 (1957-1959): 244 n. 19.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 22, repro.

1960

  • Tartuferi, Angelo. "Jacopo di Cione." In Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Edited by Alberto Maria Ghisalberti. 82+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 62(2004):58.

1962

  • Boskovits, Miklós. "Une Madonne de l’atelier de Niccolò di Pietro Gerini." Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 21 (1962): 27.

  • Offner, Richard. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. The Fourteenth Century. Sec. IV, Vol. I: Andrea di Cione. New York, 1962: 73.

1963

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 2:106, 163.

1964

  • Parronchi, Alessandro. Studi su la 'dolce prospettiva'. Milan, 1964: 121.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 97.

  • Marcucci, Luisa. Gallerie nazionali di Firenze. Vol. 2, I dipinti toscani del secolo XIV. Rome, 1965: 102, 129, 136, 137.

  • Offner, Richard, and Klara Steinweg. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. The Fourteenth Century. Sec. IV, Vol. III: Jacopo di Cione. New York, 1965: iv, 3, 5, 6, 103, 104 n. 1, 107–111, 123, 125 n. 5, 139, pls. X – X3.

1966

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 31-32, fig. 76.

1967

  • Klesse, Brigitte. Seidenstoffe in der italienischen Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts. Bern, 1967: 99, 149, 160 (repro.), 255, 397.

  • Boskovits, Miklós. "Der Meister der Santa Verdiana: Beiträge zur Geschichte der florentinischen Malerei um die Wende des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 13 (1967): 50.

  • Offner, Richard, and Klara Steinweg. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. The Fourteenth Century. Sec. IV, Vol. IV: Giovanni del Biondo, Part I. New York, 1967: ix n. 77.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 85, repro.

1969

  • Offner, Richard, and Klara Steinweg. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. The Fourteenth Century. Sec. IV, Vol. V: Giovanni del Biondo, Part II. New York, 1969: v, 59 n. 2.

1970

  • Huter, Carl. "Gentile da Fabriano and the Madonna of Humility." Arte veneta 24 (1970): 29-30, 34 n. 12, fig. 38.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972: 102, 152, 646.

1973

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 382.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 256, repro.

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Pittura fiorentina alla vigilia del Rinascimento, 1370-1400. Florence, 1975: 54, 96, 211 n. 52, 330.

1976

  • Laclotte, Michel, and Elisabeth Mognetti. Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais: peinture italienne. 2nd ed. Paris, 1976: no. 78.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:248-249; 2:pl. 169, as by Jacopo di Cione.

  • Gealt, Adelheid Medicus. "Lorenzo di Niccolò." Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1979. Ann Arbor, MI, 1980: 55 n. 22.

1980

  • Gli Uffizi: catalogo generale. 2nd ed. Florence, 1980: 288.

  • Strom, Deborah Phyl. "A New Look at Jacopo della Quercia’s Madonna of Humility." Antichità viva 19, no. 6 (1980): 19, fig. 6.

1981

  • Padoa Rizzo, Anna. "Per Andrea Orcagna pittore." Annali della Scuola normale superiore di Pisa. 11 (1981): 852, 887, pl. lxiii-2.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 294, repro.

1989

  • Eisenberg, Marvin. Lorenzo Monaco. Princeton, 1989: 7, 53 n. 27, fig. 266.

1990

  • Kreytenberg, Gert. "Orcagna’s Madonna of Humility in the National Gallery of Art in Washington: Fragen nach Attribution und Ikonographie." Center, Research Reports and Record of Activities 10 (1990): 57-58.

1991

  • Deimling, Barbara. "Il Maestro di Santa Verdiana. Un polittico disperso e il problema dell’identificazione." Arte cristiana 79 (1991): 406.

  • Kreytenberg, Gert. "Andrea di Cione." In Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale. Edited by Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana. 12 vols. Rome, 1991-2002: 1(1991):607.

  • Romano, Giovanni, ed. Dal Trecento al Seicento: le arti a paragone. Exh. cat. Antichi Maestri Pittori, Turin, 1991: 23, as the Madonna Lehman.

1992

  • Kreytenberg, Gert. "Cione, Andrea di." In Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker. Edited by Günter Meißner. 87+ vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1992+: 19(1998):259.

1993

  • Joannides, Paul. Masaccio and Masolino: A Complete Catalogue. London, 1993: 41, 48, 380, pl. 28.

  • Roberts, Perri Lee. Masolino da Panicale. Oxford, 1993: 25, 253, fig. 7.

1994

  • Skaug, Erling S. Punch Marks from Giotto to Fra Angelico: Attribution, Chronology, and Workshop Relationships in Tuscan Panel Painting with Particular Consideration to Florence, c. 1330-1430. 2 vols. Oslo, 1994: 1:195; 2:punch chart 6.14.

  • Kanter, Laurence B., Barbara Drake Boehm, Carl Brandon Strehlke, Gaudenz Freuler, and Christa C. Mayer-Thurman. Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300-1450. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994: 130, 168.

1995

  • Kreytenberg, Gert. "L’arca di San Ranieri di Tino di Camaino. Questioni di tipologia e di iconografia." In Storia ed arte nella Piazza del Duomo: Conferenze 1992-1993. Edited by Opera della Primaziale pisana. Pisa, 1995: 36-37, fig. 17.

  • Tamassia, Marilena. Collezioni d’arte tra Ottocento e Novecento: Jacquier Fotografi a Firenze, 1870-1935. Naples, 1995: 85.

1996

  • Kreytenberg, Gert. "Cione." In The Dictionary of Art. Edited by Jane Turner. 34 vols. New York and London, 1996: 7:335.

1997

  • Freuler, Gaudenz. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. IV, Vol. VII, pt. 2: Tendencies of Gothic in Florence: Don Silvestro de’ Gherarducci. Edited by Miklós Boskovits. Florence, 1997: 275, 277 fig. 1, 293–294, 296, 412 n. 1, 416, 420 n. 1, 422 n. 2.

1998

  • Frinta, Mojmír S. Punched Decoration on Late Medieval Panel and Miniature Painting. Prague, 1998: 514.

2000

  • Kreytenberg, Gert. Orcagna, Andrea di Cione: ein universeller Künstler der Gotik in Florenz. Mainz, 2000: 164-166, 180, 250, pl. 47.

  • Deimling, Barbara, and Simona Pasquinucci. A Critical and Historical Corpus of Florentine Painting. Sec. IV, Vol. VIII: Tradition and Innovation in Florentine Trecento Painting: Giovanni Bonsi – Tommaso del Mazza. Edited by Miklós Boskovits. Florence, 2000: 187 n. 1.

2001

  • Deimling, Barbara. "The Contamination of the Senses and the Purification of the Air in Mid-Fourteenth-Century Florence." In Opere e giorni: studi su mille anni di arte europea dedicati a Max Seidel. Edited by Klaus Bergdolt and Giorgio Bonsanti. Venice, 2001: 171 fig. 6.

  • Parenti, Daniela. "Studi recenti su Orcagna e sulla pittura dopo la ‘peste nera’." Arte cristiana 89 (2001): 330.

2002

  • Franci, Beatrice. "Orcagna, Andrea." In La pittura in Europa. Il Dizionario dei pittori. Edited by Carlo Pirovano. 3 vols. Milan, 2002: 2:660-661.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and Angelo Tartuferi, eds. Dipinti. Vol. 1, Dal Duecento a Giovanni da Milano. Catalogue of the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence. 1st ed. Florence, 2003: 124, 136.

2004

  • Strehlke, Carl Brandon. Italian Paintings, 1250-1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2004: 415 (repro.), 416.

2005

  • Laclotte, Michel, and Esther Moench. Peinture italienne: Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon. Paris, 2005: 103.

2006

  • Tartuferi, Angelo, and Daniela Parenti, eds. Lorenzo Monaco: Dalla tradizione giottesca al Rinascimento. Exh. cat. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, 2006: 101, fig. 1.

2009

  • Deimling, Barbara. "Tommaso del Mazza: The Portrait of a Painter in Late Trecento Florence." In Discovering a Pre-Renaissance Master: Tomasso del Mazza. Edited by Anne Short. Greenville, S.C., 2009: 3.

2010

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and Daniela Parenti, eds. Cataloghi della Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze: Dipinti. Vol. 2, Il tardo Trecento: dalla tradizione orcagnesca agli esordi del gotico internazionale. Florence, 2010: 154, 174.

2011

  • Casu, Stefano G. The Pittas Collection: Early Italian Painting (1200-1530). Florence, 2011: 207.

2016

  • Boskovits, Miklós. Italian Paintings of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2016: 191-200, color repro.

  • Bent, George R. Public Painting and Visual Culture in Early Republican Florence. Cambridge, 2016: 98-100, pl. XIV.

Wikidata ID

Q20173247

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