Madonna and Child

Abstract

This sculpture of the Madonna and Child, currently housed in the museum in the convent of Ognissanti in Florence, has been attributed on the basis of style to Nanni di Bartolo, one of the classicizing sculptors in the circle of Donatello in the early quattrocento. In these years (c. 1420), Donatello was experimenting with reviving terracotta as an artistic medium. Clay sculptures are discussed in Pliny and other classical texts well-known in the Renaissance, but clay was generally not used for large-scale sculpture before this point. In fact, restoration has revealed that Nanni di Bartolo had an imperfect command of the material, as the clay is of different thicknesses, and so some fissures happened when firing, and the lower part of the sculpture and base have been reconstructed. The paint (added to the terracotta "cold" after firing, unlike the Della Robbia glazed terracotta sculptures) may not be original, though the work must have been completely polychromed from the beginning. Unlike the many half-length images of Mary made for domestic devotion, this full-length sculpture was made for a church (possibly San Salvatore al Monte, where it was located in the sixteenth century). Nevertheless, the figures exhibit great intimacy, the mother ticking her baby under his chin. The downward tilt of Mary's head and projecting foot may suggest that this work was exhibited above ground level, perhaps on an altar or plinth, so that the faithful could look up at Mary and even touch or kiss her foot in adoration. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.