Madonna of Humility

Sassetta

National Gallery of Art

A woman holding a nude child sits against a gold background in this vertical painting, which has a long, pointed top. They both have pale skin tinged with green, blond hair, delicate features, and pink cheeks. The woman sits on a cushion with her body angled to our left and holds the baby on her right knee. She tips her head and looks down at the child with hooded eyes. She wears a cream-white dress under a midnight-blue cloak lined with forest green. She braces the baby’s torso with her right hand, to our left, and holds the pale pink cloth on which he sits with the other. The child’s body faces her, and he touches the clasp of her cloak with one hand. The other hand rests on her shoulder. Both have decorative, patterned halos punched into the gold background. The white cushion is patterned with white-petaled flowers with tiny red centers. The brown floor is speckled with white dots and perhaps minuscule flowers, but the area is dark and difficult to make out. A bearded man shown from the waist up floats overhead in a much smaller scale. He has a gold halo, blond hair, and wears a yellow robe. Six pink wings are lined up down his arms. Gold rays fan down from his body to reach a white bird between him and the woman. The panel has molding around its edges and flame-like carvings up the pointed top.