Madonna and Child with Angels and Cherubim
This painting shows a woman sitting and cradling an infant on her lap. The woman faces slightly left and looks down at the child with a slight smile. She has pale skin and golden hair covered by a semi-translucent white veil. She wears a red garment with gold embroidery and a dark blue cloak with gold trim and a star-shaped brooch on her shoulder. The infant has curly golden hair and is dressed in a sheer garment, looking up towards the woman. Surrounding these two people are more people with wings and cherubic children with the bodies of red-and-gold birds. All of these people have pale skin and golden hair, and they wear colorful robes in shades of red, white, and light blue. Everyone in the painting has a golden halo around their head, and the background is a decorative golden surface with intricate patterns around the edge of the painting.
Details
- Palette
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- Medium
- tempera on poplar panel
- Dimensions
- painted surface: 69.7 x 49.5 cm (27 7/16 x 19 1/2 in.) overall size: 79 x 58 cm (31 1/8 x 22 13/16 in.) framed: 99.7 x 78.1 x 8.3 cm (39 1/4 x 30 3/4 x 3 1/4 in.)
- Department
- CIS-R
- Holding institution
- National Gallery of Art
- Image provider
- national-gallery-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Art Genome Taxonomy
10 tags
Subject Matter
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Madonna and Child Both · 100%
The catalog title identifies the Madonna and Child, and the image visibly shows a veiled woman holding an infant across her lap.
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Deities and Holy Figures Both · 99%
The title identifies angels and cherubim, while the image shows multiple haloed attendants, including winged and childlike figures, surrounding the central pair.
Styles and Movements
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Early Renaissance Interpretive · 78%
The fifteenth-century devotional panel format, gold ground, haloes, shallow spatial organization, and linear ornamental detail support an Early Renaissance classification, although the supplied catalog does not list a style.
Visual Qualities
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Highly Ornamented Visual · 98%
The image is richly decorated with gold-patterned borders and ground, embroidered and trimmed garments, haloes, and ornamental costume details.
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Patterns Visual · 96%
Repeated motifs appear across the gold ground, halo designs, garment borders, and patterned textiles.
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Dense Composition Visual · 96%
Overlapping figures occupy nearly the entire surface, leaving little open space and creating a tightly compressed arrangement.
Medium and Techniques
Time Periods
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15th Century Art Metadata · 100%
The recorded date, c. 1460/1465, places the work within the fifteenth century.
Materials
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Wood Metadata · 100%
The catalog identifies the support as poplar panel, a type of wood.
Source & rights
Matteo di Giovanni. Madonna and Child with Angels and Cherubim. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.