Madonna and Child in a Garden

Cosmè Tura

National Gallery of Art

A woman sits facing us on a stone bench with her hands in prayer over the head of a baby who sleeps, propped up between the woman’s knees in this vertical painting. The wood panel on which this is painted is framed by carved, curling gold vines encircling two small people in the upper corners. All the people have pale skin, and plate-like, shiny gold halos seem to rest atop the woman and child’s heads. The woman tilts her head to her left, our right, to look toward the baby with lowered eyes. Her skin is smooth and a translucent white cloth covers her head. She wears a cherry-red dress under a teal-blue cloak that falls in folds over her arms and legs, and pools around her shins and feet. She steeples her elongated fingers to touch in front of her chest. The baby wears a forest-green robe and has bare feet. He props his chin on crossed forearms, which rest on the woman’s left leg, to our right. He has blond, curly hair and delicate features. The woman sits on a stone bench with a base decorated with tan designs against a vivid orange background. Tufts of grass grow in a few areas near her feet and the bench in the dirt ground. A cloud of crimson-red, swirling forms, perhaps blossoms, behind the woman is flanked to each side by leafy, dark green bushes bearing green, round fruit. In a roundel made by the scrolling gold vine in the upper left is occupied by a winged angel facing our right in profile. The angel wears a plum-purple robe over a pine-green garment, and holds up the first two fingers of one hand, palm facing out. In the roundel in top right corner, a woman wearing a dark purple robe covering her head and body over a ruby-red dress sits facing our left in profile. She rests one hand on a book on a wooden desk in front of her and the other hand is raised, palm facing out. The background behind the roundels and the pair below is midnight blue.