Studio of Sandro Botticelli

The Virgin Mary, Infant Christ, and Saint John the Baptist

Florence, about 1500

Tempera on canvas

130.7 x 91.4 cm

Mary arches to the left as she lowers her son, Jesus, towards his cousin, John the Baptist. The elaborate garments that wrap around Mary’s head, neck and shoulders restrict her movement and create a sense of claustrophobia. She is mournful, as John receives Jesus’s face with tenderness.

The melancholy of this painting is explained by its tragic, hidden theme: the Deposition, which is the lowering of Christ from the cross. Given the size of this canvas, it is likely that it served as an altarpiece; the decoration behind an altar table where the Eucharist was celebrated. The Eucharist commemorated Christ’s death on the cross through the consumption of bread and wine symbolising Christ’s body and blood.

Sandro Botticelli is one of the finest painters of religious and mythological subjects of the Italian Renaissance. It is likely that this canvas was painted by Botticelli’s studio, based on an original design by the master. The ‘original’ version is now in the Galleria Palatina, Florence. The Barber’s painting has been reversed so it appears the opposite way round.

This painting reveals Botticelli’s later style, which often featured large, solemn figures that filled up the space. Another important example is The Descent of the Holy Ghost, now in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Purchased 1943 (No. 43.10)

Further reading:

Debenedetti, Ana, Botticelli Past and Present, London, 2019, pp. 7-9.

Joannides, Paul, ‘Late Botticelli: archaism and ideology’, in Art Cristiana, 83, 1995, pp. 163-78.

O’Malley, Michelle, ‘Quality choices in the production of Renaissance art: Botticelli and demand’, in Renaissance Studies, 28/1, 2013, pp. 5-32.

Reilly, Patricia L., ‘Artists’ workshops’, in The Cambridge Companion to The Italian Renaissance, ed. Michael Wyatt, Cambridge, 2014, pp. 84-99.

Schumacher, Andreas, Botticelli: Likeness, Myth, Devotion, (exh.. cat., Städel Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main), Ostfildern 2009, pp. 163, 332-33.

Spike, John T., and Alessandro Cecchi, Botticelli and the Search for the Divine: Florentine Painting between the Medici and the Bonfires of the Vanities, Williamsburg, 2017, pp. 31, 162-64.

Steinberg, Ronald M., Fra Girolamo Savonarola, Florentine Art, and Renaissance Historiography, Athens, 1977.