The panel depicts the Virgin and Child in the iconographic type of the Madonna lactans. The composition is intimate and concentrated: the figures occupy almost the entire pictorial space, while the neutral golden-grey background, with a soft radiance around Mary’s head, emphasises the prayerful, otherworldly character of the image. The Virgin is shown wearing a red mantle, a white veil, and a dark undergarment; her inclined head, lowered eyelids, and restrained gesture of the hands create an image of quiet contemplation and maternal tenderness. The Christ Child lies on her lap, turned towards her breast and at the same time active in gesture: in His hands He holds an orb surmounted by a cross, linking the intimate scene of nursing with the idea of His future sovereignty and redemptive mission.

The work may appropriately be attributed to the Master of the Gold Brocade, circle of Rogier van der Weyden, with a cautious dating to the late fifteenth century and an association with the Early Netherlandish, probably Flemish, tradition. The significance of the painting lies in its belonging to a stable and influential Rogierian line of the Madonna: it combines emotional restraint, delicate linearity, noble severity of facial types, and the theologically charged motif of nursing. The value of the work consists not only in its artistic quality and the expressiveness of the image, but also in the fact that it reflects a development crucial to the Northern Renaissance: the transition from an iconic, sacral and distanced image to a more intimate, humanly accessible form of religious contemplation.

Size: 43 x 34 cm.