Madonna and Child

Carlo Crivelli

National Gallery of Art

A woman is shown from the waist up behind a ledge, on which a baby stands in front of a gold background in this vertical painting. Both people have pale skin, blond hair, light brown eyes, and small, pale pink lips. To the right, the woman’s body is angled slightly to our left, toward the child. Her head tips down so her forehead overlaps the baby’s head. The woman has close-set, almond-shaped eyes under thin brows. Her hair is pulled back and her head encircled with a string of pearls and a red bead or gem, which rests in the middle of her forehead. Her hair is also partially covered by a white veil and a blue cloak patterned with gold leaves, vines, and dots. The lining of the cloak is moss green, and her dusky pink dress is also edged and decorated with gold designs. She holds one long-fingered hand up to the child’s knee and braces his back side with her other hand. The child stands on chubby legs on tiny, sandaled feet. He leans close to the woman and looks off to our right with hooded, wide-set eyes. His lips are downturned, and he has chubby cheeks and a knobby chin. He wears a strand of red beads and a moss-green tunic over translucent white cloth. He stands on a red cloth draped over the center of the white ledge. A piece of a small, round red fruit with a long stem sits on the ledge to the right. The space behind the people’s shoulders is painted muted mauve pink with gray streaks. The woman and child both have halos punched into the gold background above. A branch with two pears is in the top left corner and another branch, perhaps holding an apple, is in the top right. The panel is framed by a raised lip, also painted gold.