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Find the Child’s hand at the back of his mother’s neck, then the sheer veil that falls over her hair and shoulder.
Mary presses her cheek to her son’s while he holds the back of her neck, an everyday gesture of affection given to a holy subject. A smaller angel watches from the corner, and an arched window opens onto a valley. The Art Institute notes that Botticelli was much admired in his lifetime for this tender, almost touchable manner, which he used for sacred and secular subjects alike.
Tempera on panel · 85.8 × 59.1 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Renaissance · Late Gothic and Early Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Virgin and Child with an Angel
- Artist
- Sandro Botticelli (Italian, 1444/45–1510)
- Date
- 1475–85
- Medium
- Tempera on panel
- Dimensions
- 85.8 × 59.1 cm (33 3/4 × 23 1/4 in.); Framed: 106.7 × 80.1 × 7.7 cm (42 × 31 1/2 × 3 in.)
- Credit line
- Max and Leola Epstein Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Renaissance c. 1300–1600
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.