Madonna and Child with Angels

Hans Memling

National Gallery of Art

Shown under an ornately carved stone arch, a young woman holds a baby on her lap as she sits on a curving gold chair flanked by two kneeling angels in this vertical painting. All of the people have pale skin. The woman has long blond hair, a straight nose, and a small pink mouth. Her body faces us but she gazes down. She wears a gold-trimmed, deep blue robe under a crimson-red mantle that covers her shoulders and drapes over her lap and to the floor. She holds an open book with her left hand, on our right, and supports the sitting baby’s body with her other hand. The baby is nude except for a piece of white fabric across one thigh. The baby touches the open book with one hand and reaches toward a small, round piece of fruit the angel on our left offers. That angel has blond hair and sapphire-blue wings, and wears a pale blue garment under a red and gold patterned robe. The angel holds out the fruit with the right hand and in the other, holds an instrument like a violin and bow. The angel to our right has similar hair and facial features, and has blue wings and a sky-blue robe. Both hands strum a harp as the angel gazes to our left almost in profile. Behind the chair, a cloth patterned in pine green and gold hangs vertically from a curving red overhang between tall, narrow archways that open onto a landscape. In the distance, people move through green fields and along a river winding toward a castle to our left beneath a clear blue sky. The angels' wings overlap with the stone archway that frames the scene. It is carved along the inner edge of the arch with vines, lizards, and snails. Two columns flank the arch and atop each is a bearded man, as if carved from the same cream-colored stone of the arch. The man to our left holds a harp and the one to our right holds a saw. Winged, nude, child-like people, putti, hold orbs aloft in the upper corners.