Christ Child

This chubby-cheeked Christ Child, standing erect, is one of the oldest known examples of the “Santo Bambino”, a type of votive image associated with Franciscan mysticism. The figure may be positioned either standing or lying, as the cloth wrapped around the soles of the feet indicates. At Christmas it would be laid in a manger, and only after the feast of the Epiphany would it again be displayed upright. Then it no longer symbolized a newborn infant but instead the coming Saviour, his hand raised in blessing, the cloak gathered about him in a dignified fashion. The figure is ascribed to the Master of the Madonna of Sant’ Agostino in the Galleria Nazionale in Perugia, by whose hand there is also another Madonna in Berlin.