(Florence 1391–1478 Pisa)
Madonna and Child,
tempera on gold ground panel, shaped top, 104.1 x 69.9 cm, framed

Provenance:
Ameri Collection, Florence;
Private collection

Literature:
M. Boskovits, Ancora su Paolo Schiavo: una scheda biografica e una proposta di catalogo, in: Arte cristiana, vol. 83, 1995, pp. 335-6, fig. 5

Paolo de Stefano Badaloni, called Paolo Schiavo, worked mainly between Florence and Pisa. He trained with Lorenzo Monaco and may have travelled to Rome with Masolino da Panicale. He enrolled in the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in Florence in 1429 and his works there include a signed and dated fresco of 1436 of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints in San Miniato al Monte and a fresco of the Crucifixion Adored by Nuns in the Convent of Santa Apollonia, Florence. 

The present painting has been dated to the 1440s and it shows Schiavo’s mature style, when the artist had absorbed the new emphasis in the Florentine Early Renaissance of depicting convincing volume in figures. An increasingly naturalistic approach in the depiction of the relationship between the Madonna and Child is also apparent. The Child embraces the Madonna around her neck and leans into her, as she looks towards him creating a sense of contact between the two figures which is convincingly observed. At the same time, the red and gold canopy behind the figures and the arms of the throne are reminiscent of the tradition of Florentine gold ground painting from which Schiavo stylistically descended.

The facial types in the present composition can be compared to Schiavo’s Annunciation in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.