Artwork Details
21-1/2 x 16-5/16 in.
Accession NumberThe Clowes Collection
CopyrightEuropean Painting and Sculpture Before 1800
Color PalettePrivate Collection, Milan, Italy; Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi, Rome and Florence, Italy, by 1930; Jules S. Bache [Hazkate Company], New York, New York until 23 April 1945; (E. and A. Silberman Galleries, Inc., New York, New York); Dr. George Henry Alexander Clowes, Indianapolis, Indiana, 3 June 1945; The Clowes Fund Collection, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1958-2000; Given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2000.
Like many other Madonna and Child compositions produced by Giovanni Bellini in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Venice, this image was intended to provoke the contemplation of its viewer. The monumentality of the figures in relationship to the distant landscape, as well as their close proximity to the viewer's own space, emphasize the Madonna and Child's sacred importance and draw the worshipper into quiet meditation of the infant Christ. In the act of presenting the Child to the observer, Mary's own role as intercessor and protector of the faithful is underscored.
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