Nursing Madonna

Coming from the former convent of San Giovanni Evangelista della Beverara at the Regaste San Zeno, the panel belongs to a group of frescoes discovered and detached in 1896, depicting a Madonna on the throne nursing the Child, made with flat red and yellow, green, white and blue ocher layers. Jesus, with a tiny head compared to his body and his mother, grasps with both hands the hand of the Virgin who holds the breast from which he sucks the milk. His dress is green, with a red mantle, while the cross shaped halo is jeweled, like the oblong one of the mother. A yellow velarium hangs behind the Virgin, while part of the cushion of the seat is visible from the throne. The anonymous painter constructs the figures with uneven proportions and incongruous dimensions, while the formal elongation of the bodies is heavily accentuated. Outlines and features of the figures are rendered only by calligraphic strokes and not by volumes; the faces are devoid of polychrome complexions and the somatic features are obtained with linear brushstrokes.