Domenico Veneziano (c.1410-1461)
Madonna col Bambino (Madonna and Child)
c.1445–1450
Tempera on poplar panel, 83 x 57 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Shown from the hips up, a woman to our left wears a sapphire-blue robe over a petal-pink dress, and she supports a pudgy, nude infant to our right in this vertical painting. Both have marble-white skin faintly tinged with green, wavy blond hair, and shiny gold halos. Their heads tilt toward each other so the woman’s cheek brushes the top of the baby’s head. She holds his body with one hand nearly flat against his torso and the other, covered with her robe, bracing his back. The baby holds the pinky of her hand against his chest with his left hand, on our right, and wraps his other arm around her heck. The woman looks down to our right with olive-green eyes under faint brows. She has a delicate nose and her pale, pink lips are parted. Her hair is covered by a sheer white cloth that falls over the shoulders of her blue robe, which is lined with golden yellow where it turns back around her neck. Her pink dress is trimmed with a band of moss green along the curving, sweetheart neckline and around the cuffs of her sleeves, and is ornamented with pearls and red, white, and blue orbs, possibly jewels. The baby looks at or toward us, his pink lips also parted and his rounded cheeks slightly blushed. He stands on his left foot, to our right, and raises his other foot, knee bent. Stylized white and pink roses with mint-green stems and leaves grow up against a royal-blue background behind the pair. (NGA)