Madonna and Child Flanked by Four Saints

Like a Gothic dollhouse, this delicate three-part altarpiece shelters the Virgin and her son at center stage, where they tower over the saints who attend to them. The work’s fairly modest size suggests that it was not a church commission, but a work used in private worship. Nonetheless, its luminous colors, delicate floral banding, and lavish gold-leaf background suggest that the buyer paid a pretty penny to hang it at home. During the Middle Ages, an intense devotional cult paid homage to the Virgin Mary and celebrated her role as the blessed Mother of God with paintings like this one.

2014.3.5