ON VIEW

Description

Benedetto da Maiano’s Madonna and Child is a freestanding terracotta sculpture set in a removable carved niche. Only the front of the figure is sculpted, indicating that it was originally displayed in a niche and was intended to be seen straight on. The sculpture is painted in several colors, or polychromed. The painted surface and large scale heighten its lifelike appearance. Very little of the original paint remains, however, and the present colors are probably the result of extensive overpainting.1 The full-length standing figure of the Virgin Mary is youthful, and her slender body is covered in softly modeled folds of drapery. She wears a crimson robe underneath a large blue-green cloak. A red scarf covers her hair, and a tiny gold medallion hangs around her neck. She wears thin sandals on her exposed feet. The crook of her left arm supports the naked Christ child, who gazes sweetly downward and raises his right hand in a gesture of blessing. Mary holds a red piece of cloth across his cherubic body. Her face is peaceful yet wistful, as if she is already aware of her child’s fate.


Context and Analysis

The standing Madonna, as opposed to the more common enthroned Madonna, is rare in large-scale Florentine sculpture of the 1400s. It had previously been a popular format in Gothic art, but Benedetto was one of few artists to revive the type in the early Renaissance. Although he worked in a wide range of media, Benedetto used marble rather than terracotta for most of his sculpted Madonnas. In its style and format, the Currier Museum’s Madonna bears a close resemblance to another standing Madonna located in the parish church of Terranova Sappo Minulio in Calabria, in southern Italy. Slight differences between the two figures indicate that the Currier Madonna is not a copy or cast of the marble Calabrian sculpture, known as the Madonna of the Snow. It is more likely that Benedetto made the terracotta sculpture as a preparatory model for the Madonna of the Snow, as this was a common practice in his workshop.

As Benedetto’s fame as a talented sculptor spread throughout Italy and abroad, he received commissions from wealthy patrons who sought to commemorate themselves and their families. His large-scale frontal sculptures, therefore, were not intended for private devotion, but rather for public veneration.

Connections

Early Renaissance sculpture was very popular among American collectors in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Benedetto’s Madonna and Child was previously owned by two different private collectors in New York before the Currier Gallery of Art purchased it in 1945. It was also exhibited at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Written by Nadia Baadj

Notes
1 Carl, vol. 1, 109n62.

Bibliography

Carl, Doris. Benedetto da Maiano: A Florentine Sculptor at the Threshold of the High Renaissance. 2 vols. Turnhout, Belgium, 2006.

“A Florentine Madonna and Child.” Currier Gallery of Art Bulletin (December 1949).

Lein, Edgar. Benedetto da Maiano. Frankfurt, 1988.