Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, and Angels

Matteo di Giovanni

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the thighs up, a woman holding a baby is surrounded by a man, woman, and two winged angels in this vertical painting. Mary, the central woman, the baby, Jesus, and the other woman, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, have pale, peach-toned skin. The man, Saint Jerome, and two angels have slightly darker peach-colored skin with faint gray shading. They all have gold halos, wide-set, hooded, light brown eyes, long, straight noses, delicate mouths, and pointed chins where we can see. Mary sits with her knees angled to our right, and she looks down at the baby held sitting upright near that shoulder. The crown of her head is covered by a white veil down to her forehead. A lapis-blue cloak drapes over the back of her head, her shoulders, and across her lap. There is a gold starburst on the right shoulder, to our left, and the cloak is edged in gold. The dress she wears is patterned ruby red on garnet red and decorated with shimmering, bright gold designs. She supports Jesus’s bottom with her left hand, to our right, and braces his chest with her other hand. He has small features with chubby cheeks, a high hairline with blond hair, and a chubby body. He grips the neckline of her dress with his right hand, to our left, and touches the hand that holds his chest with the other. He is nude except for a translucent white cloth around his chest and hips. To our left, Saint Jerome looks down at and writes in a book with a dark green cover using a feather quill. He is balding and has a long white beard. His forehead is lined, his cheeks hollow, and his lips parted. He wears a red robe over a white garment with a white collar. To our right, Saint Catherine looks at Jesus and holds a blue-covered book and black quill pen in one hand and a fragment of a wooden wheel lined with spikes with the other. Her blond hair is wrapped with and around a white cloth, and she wears a white-on-white patterned dress under a silver-gray cloak. One angel looks on from between Mary and the other looks up and to our right from behind Jesus. Both have their lips parted. The one to our right wears a pale pink garment and holds up one hand. The background is shiny, bright gold punched along the top and upper corners with a geometric design.