(circa 1353 – circa 1410)
The Madonna and Child,
fresco transferred, on board, 81 x 65.5 cm, unframed

This work originally formed the central section of a larger composition representing the Madonna Lactans according to the iconography of the ‘Madonna of Humility’. The Virgin was represented seated in the act of feeding her Child within a mandorla emanating golden rays and stars, flanked by two angels in prayer, of which only the hands of one on the right survive.

This painting is a typical example of the work of Lippo di Dalmasio, one of the most important Bolognese painters active at the close of the fourteenth century, who frequently revisited the same subjects in a similar manner (see F.Boggi, R.Gibbs, Lippo di Dalmasio ‘assai valente pittore’, Bologna 2013). This work can be compared to other works in fresco executed by Lippo in the churches of Bologna, such as the detached fresco dated 1397 in Santa Maria della Misericordia or another in the Chapel of the Madonna dell’Orazione in the Oratorio di San Colombano (1399), or likewise the fragmentary Madonna and Child in San Martino Maggiore, also dating to the last decade of the fourteenth century, or a little later.

In the lively characterisation of the Child, the artist’s desire to evoke the great achievements of Vitale da Bologna are evident, just as they are in the fine rendering of the subject on canvas formerly in the Ercolani collection and now in the National Gallery, London. The torso of the Madonna is markedly sculptural recalling the Florentine ambit of Orcagna which the artist would have come into contact with while he was in Pistoia. The motif of the transparent veil that frames the Virgin’s features and fair hair, is similarly replicated in a signed triptych in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, wherein the prevailing descriptive tone directly preludes late gothic taste.