Madonna and Child

Bartolomeo Vivarini

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the waist up, a woman behind a stone ledge and in front of a landscape holds a chubby baby tucked into one elbow in this vertical painting. Both have pale skin, flushed cheeks, and blond hair surrounded by gold-edged halos. The woman looks down and to our left with hooded eyes. Her pink lips are closed over a pointed, cleft chin. A translucent white veil brushes across her high forehead and is covered by a marine-blue mantle that drapes over her head and shoulders. The mantle is edged in gold, and the plum-purple lining is visible where it is rolled back over her head and forearms. Her apple-red dress is cinched at the waist and falls in vertical folds. She holds her left hand, to our right, up with the palm facing in and the fingers gesturing toward the child. He half sits in the crook of her other elbow and rests his feet on a white pillow, which is on the gray stone ledge. The child wears a translucent white, long-sleeved garment under a pine-green tunic, and a butter-yellow cloth is wrapped around his hips. A purple banner hanging behind the woman is about the width of her collarbone, and a deep landscape to each side has trees, cliffs, and walking paths leading into the distance under piles of white clouds drifting across a watery blue sky.