Madonna and Child

Against a tranquil landscape, the Madonna sits upon a rock with the active Christ Child on her knee. The pyramidal composition, bold chiaroscuro (contrasts of light and dark), and hazy definition of the contours are evocative of the work of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). The Christ Child is in fact copied from one of Leonardo’s earliest paintings, the “Madonna of the Carnation” (ca. 1478-80), now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The Florentine artist Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, in whose workshop this painting was surely made, was a contemporary of Leonardo’s and would have had ample opportunity to study his work in their native Florence. Ridolfo was also a colleague of Raphael's (1483-1520), who popularized the motif of the Madonna and Child in an open-air landscape during his brief tenure in Florence from 1504 to 1508.

For another painting in the Walters from Ridolfo Ghirlandaio's workshop, see 37.436.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1881 catalogue: no. 45; 1897 catalogue: no. 89, as Luca da Cortona]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.