Maestà (Madonna and Child with Four Angels)

Master of Città di Castello

National Gallery of Art

A woman cradling an upright male child sits on a semi-circular throne surrounded by four winged angels in this vertical painting, which comes to a shallow, triangular point at the top. The people and angels have pale skin tinged with green, and all have flat, disk-like gold halos. The woman wears a voluminous, navy-blue mantle covered in a dense pattern of gold lines, which drapes over her head and wraps around her rose-pink gown. A sliver of a pumpkin-orange cap covering her hair peeks out from under the mantle. Her body is angled to our right and her head tilts in that direction. She looks up and to our left with large hazel-brown eyes under arched brows. Her long nose and closed, peach-colored mouth are set in an oval face. The boy’s shoulders and legs are wrapped in a rose-pink robe that leaves his torso bare. He sits in the curve of the woman’s left arm, to our right, so his body is angled toward her. He has brown hair and adult-like facial features. He reaches one hand toward the woman’s throat with his index and middle fingers raised, while she points to him with her other hand, on our left. The cream-white, stone throne curves around the pair. The back has three levels of recessed panels above a band of brick red, where it meets the wider base. The base has two levels of inset panels, and the seat is covered with a scarlet-red cloth. The front of the arms and the top of the curved back are lined with ruby-red finials. Two angels stand on each side, with one positioned higher than the other, and all four are angled inward to look at the woman and child. The angels on the bottom wear slate-blue gowns while the ones on top wear robes in the same rose pink as the child. The background in the upper zone of the painting is gold. Some areas of gold in the background and in the halos have partially worn away. The painting is in a dark wooden frame that follows the angles along the pointed top.