The Mourning Madonna

Master of the Franciscan Crucifixes

National Gallery of Art

Shown against a shiny gold background, a woman wearing a royal-blue mantle that covers her head and body stands with her head tipped sharply to rest in one hand in this vertical painting. Her skin is pale with a noticeably green tint. She tilts her head to our right and looks in that direction with brown eyes. Her right cheek flushes with a bright pink circle, and three horizontal pale yellow strokes indicate wrinkles at the corner of the eye closer to us. Visible strokes in butter yellow define her chin, nose, wrinkles on her furrowed forehead, and neck. A dark violet-purple cloth hangs over the shoulders of her blue mantle. A four-lobed design, perhaps a flower, is painted on her right shoulder, closer to us. The purple cloth is edged with gold, and tiny tassels with clover-shaped ends hang from the bottom hem. The blue mantle drapes over pointed, red shoes. A halo around her head is punched and incised into the gold background. A network of cracks runs across the gold background, and the red layer underneath is visible in some areas.