Madonna and Child

The high-relief comes from the outside of a building in Vicolo Balena in Verona where, due to its external position, it has almost totally lost its original polychromy, undergoing considerable wear on the surface. It is a work of high craftsmanship, with the exquisite solution of the pyramidal structure of the Madonna that embraces and encloses the child, and constitutes one of the examples of the Madonna known as "of Verona". The invention of the subject is unanimously attributed to the Paduan period of Donatello (1447-14539); however, due to the late Gothic style of the support, foreign to Donatello's taste, it has been assumed that the Verona mold was elaborated from a model by Donatello in a local workshop by the end of the 15th century.