2-734-486 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Madonna and Child, c. 1470. This relief is one of several such painted stucco replicas cast after the marble original of about 1460-1465 now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. While this example has suffered old and obvious losses, it still conveys the overall composition and some of the subtlety of modelling of the marble. In addition, it retains sufficient portions of its fifteenth-century paint and gilding to suggest a colourfulness and richly decorated surface which the marble was never intended to have, and which connects this work with panel paintings of the time. The gilded wooden frame, not made for this relief, is Venetian and dates to about 1400-1450.