The Virgin Mary sits in the corner of a simple room, the Christ Child on her lap. She holds him gently with both hands as he presses his cheek to hers and reaches for her breast. He wears a gauzy shirt which contrasts with the layers of veils and garments covering his mother.
Light streaming through the open window casts a shadow on the wall behind the Virgin, which seems to be made of the grey sandstone known as pietra serena that was often used as a building material in Renaissance Florence. Outside, two slender intertwined trees echo the tender embrace of the Virgin and Christ. A river lined with bushy trees flows through the hilly landscape and past a small town that is surrounded by a crenellated wall.
We don't know who this painting was made for, but a closely related version (now in a private collection) is said to have come from a villa in the outskirts of Florence that formerly belonged to the Ginori family. The peaceful landscape seen through the open window might have chimed with the pastoral setting of the painting’s original location. Our painting was in the collection of Count Angiolo Galli Tassi in Florence before being acquired from a dealer in Milan for the National Gallery in 1867.
The workshop of Sandro Botticelli produced numerous paintings that show the Virgin embracing her infant son in a way similar to this painting or with minor changes; a closely related version from Botticelli’s early career is believed to be the prototype for all these versions (Louvre, Paris). Their existence attests to the popularity of both the motif and the artist himself in the decades around 1500. As well as the many versions of this particular image, there are numerous paintings that show the Virgin and Christ Child in different poses, often in a similar interior and with comparable landscape backgrounds (see The Virgin and Child with a Pomegranate, for example). The majority of these works were made by assistants, who reproduced the successful designs accessible to them in Botticelli’s workshop. Their quality fluctuates significantly, depending on the skills of the individual assistant. Only a few of these workshop paintings are documented before the nineteenth century, but it is likely that they were made as devotional aids for use in the home. They would, however, also have been valued for their artistic beauty.
Although Sandro Botticelli is now one of the most celebrated artists of the Italian Renaissance, his paintings have not always been appreciated. Demand for his works was very high throughout his lifetime, but he was almost entirely forgotten in later centuries. British artists and collectors played an important role in the reawakening of interest in Botticelli in the nineteenth century, and the National Gallery became an important place to see and study his paintings.
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