Collection: Madonna and Child with Young St. John the Baptist

ARTIST: Museum Religious Art Classics

ARTWORK NARRATIVE:

Artist: Fra Bartolomeo – c. 1497

Mother and child are shown in a softly lit domestic interior with a window looking on to a mill copied from the Netherlandish painter Hans Memling, whose paintings were prized among Florentines. By contrast, the lively play of hands, the elaborate configuration of the drapery, and the treatment of light are Fra Bartolomeo’s response to the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Fra Bartolomeo was among the most creative painters in late fifteenth-century Florence. This work was painted before he joined the Dominican order in 1500.