17th Century, Madonna With Child In Baby Clothes

17th century 
Madonna with Child in baby clothes
Oil on copper, cm 22 x 16
With frame, cm 31.5 x 26

The work, of modest dimensions is made in oil on copper, a type of support that had great success in the sixteenth century and which disappeared almost completely with the end of the seventeenth century. The subject of the work is the Virgin Mary, crowned and dressed in sumptuous and richly decorated clothes, especially in the edge of the mantle that has fine threads of gold, while tenderly sweeps the child Jesus, wrapped in blue and white bands. The spiritual dimension of the depiction is amplified by the setting in which every reference to the earthly world disappears, as it happened in the late Gothic era, but without the use of the typical gold backgrounds. The feet of the Virgin are hidden by a crescent of the inverted moon, on which overflows with unexpected naturalism, a flap of the robe of Mary. The whole is framed by blue clouds that fade on the white bottom. The presence of the crescent moon, symbol of the Immaculate Conception and virginity, and the crown on the head of Mary, refer to verse 12, 1-2 of the Revelation of John the Evangelist: "In the sky appeared a great sign: a woman dressed in sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars."

Rather similar to this work, is that of the Sassoferrato (1609-1685) made in 1650, in which we see the Madonna with child (not in bands, but dressed in a red tunic) close in an embrace. At the feet of the sitting virgin, the crescent moon and all around clouds and cherubim. In general the depiction of the Virgin on a crescent moon is a representation that develops in the west from the late-renaissance.

The object is in good condition