The Virgin and Child

c. 1490 · Painting

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Harvard Art Museums

Cambridge, Verenigde Staten

Zaal2500, floor 2, European Art, 13th–16th century

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Gecontroleerd: eergisteren
Ongewijzigd sinds: 27 sep 2026
Bron: De eigen collectiegegevens van het museum

Op de kaart Museumpagina

Over het schilderij

Botticelli oversaw an active workshop that produced multiple versions of the same composition. The central figures in this painting are a reworking of the Virgin and Child from the San Barnaba altarpiece, one of the most important commissions of Botticelli’s mature period in Florence. They are framed in a pavilion whose perspective is carefully rendered, while in the background, a townscape rises beneath a blue sky. The crisp linearity, idealized facial features, foreshortened halos, and geometric organization of space are characteristically Florentine. The architecture of the buildings, however, is Netherlandish — evidence of the vibrant cultural exchange between Florence and the North during the fifteenth century. Technical studies show that the Christ child originally held a recorder, an unusual attribute that was apparently rejected and painted over with the pomegranate, a symbol of the Passion because of its blood-red seeds.

Harvard Art Museums

Gegevens

Inventarisnummer: 1943.105

In de catalogus

Schilderijen Tempera Italiaanse schilderkunst Renaissance 15e eeuw Italië

Bronnen

Harvard Art Museums: de open data van het museum · opgehaald 8 dagen geleden
Afbeelding: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College

Intussen, in het leven van Sandro Botticelli

Het hele leven

1480s
Lorenzo's circle: Ficino, Pico, Poliziano
Botticelli frequented Lorenzo the Magnificent's Platonic Academy, where he met the humanists, poets and philosophers Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano; the influence of Neoplatonism shows in his secular paintings.
1490–1498
Savonarola's preaching and Botticelli
From 1490 Savonarola preached in Florence; according to Vasari, Botticelli became his follower, gave up painting and fell into hardship. Modern historians reject this, and the extent of the preacher's influence remains uncertain — Botticelli's brother Simone was the clearer follower.
1491
The committee on the cathedral façade
In 1491 Botticelli served on the committee deciding on a façade for the Cathedral of Florence; the next year he received three payments for a design, eventually abortive, to put mosaics on some of the cathedral's interior vaults.

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