Madonna and Child

The Virgin, sitting on a meadow strewn with flowers, is depicted as the Madonna of humility. The Child holds a bird in his right hand, probably the goldfinch which alludes to the sacrifice of Christ, and a scroll in the left. The color is abraded perhaps by an ancient cleaning intervention, but traces of the gold finishes remain in the Child's halo. The deep debt towards the figurative language of Gentile da Fabriano, of whom Jacopo was a pupil, is clearly recognizable in the dense drapery of the mantle, which seems to derive directly from the study of his works. Links with international culture, of which Gentile was one of the main interpreters, can also be seen in the meticulous description of the flower garden that surrounds the figures, in the precious gold ornaments that once decorated the edges of the robes and in the decoration with pseudo-Kufic characters of the halos.