Charity

Giovanni di Balduccio

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the thighs up, a woman and two children are carved in high and low relief on this white marble, vertically oriented rectangular panel. The woman’s body faces us, but she cranes her neck sharply to look up and to our left. She has rounded features and wears a veil that drapes over her head and long robe. She holds up a scroll carved with the word “CHARITAS” in her right hand, to our left, and wraps her other hand around the shoulders of two small children in the lower right. The children face her and tip their heads back, and they appear to drink streams of liquid coming from a flame-shape on her chest. The trio are enclosed in a quatrefoil shape, which has lobes at each corner separated by points along each edge. Stepped molding frames the quatrefoil.