Madonna and Child
Mino da Fiesole (1429-1484) · c. 1470-1490
The Virgin, seen in half length, holds the standing Child in front of her within a shallow marble panel. Mino da Fiesole carves with a crisp, linear touch: the edges of the veil, the fine strands of hair and the tiny fingers of the Child are all drawn in the stone with a precision closer to goldsmith's work than to Donatello's soft modelling. Traces of gilding pick out the haloes and the borders. At the base of the relief a coat of arms, a lion's leg on a silver field above blue and silver stripes, identifies the family who commissioned it, the Arrighi of Florence.
Mino, who worked in Florence and Rome, specialised in marble portraits and devotional reliefs of this kind, made for the private chapels and bedrooms of Florentine families. The panel dates from the last two decades of his life. It was probably bought in Florence between 1834 and 1836 by the Parisian collector Horace His de La Salle, better known for his drawings, who gave it to the Louvre in November 1862. The coat of arms makes it a rare case where the original patrons of a Renaissance Madonna can still be named.
Did You Know? The coat of arms carved at the bottom still names the Florentine family that ordered the relief more than five centuries ago.
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