Madonna and Child with Angels

Abstract

This glazed terracotta relief of the Madonna and Child with Angels and the dove of the Holy Spirit is currently housed in the Oratorio di San Martino (also known as the Oratorio dei Buomuomini) in Florence. It may have been originally made for domestic devotion, as many such tondi (round paintings or sculptures) were and then given as an offering to the confraternity at an unknown date. The relief is a close copy of another glazed terracotta tondo in Città di Castello, except that the Florentine version is less deep in the relief, and the forms are less crisply defined, which suggests that it could be a later cast taken from the same mold. Such half-length images of the Madonna and Child in terracotta and stucco were often reproduced using molds during this period and then individually glazed or painted. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.