Collection of the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Madonna and Child in Glory

Artist/Maker Benvenuto Tisi da Garofalo (Italy, 1481-1559)

Dateca. 1535

Mediumtempera and oil on wood

DimensionsSight: 15 1/2 x 10 1/4 in. (39.4 x 26 cm)
Framed: 16 1/4 x 21 3/4 x 3 in. (41.3 x 55.2 x 7.6 cm)

ClassificationsVisual Works

Credit LineGift of The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Terms

Object number61.007.000

On View

On view

Collections

Art of Europe

DescriptionGarofalo worked primarily in Ferrara, the site of one of the most brilliant and cultured courts of Renaissance Italy. The Madonna and Child in Glory, a small-scale version of a composition that Garofalo employed previously for several large altarpieces, was based on Raphael’s Madonna of Foligno of 1511-1512, which he had seen in person in Rome. As in Raphael’s masterpiece, the glorified status of the Madonna is conveyed by her elevated position in heaven, enthroned on clouds. The wide landscape below is a generalized setting used by Garofalo in a number of paintings, but in this context its prominence suggests that the work was intended as a votive offering, invoking the Virgin’s protection for a particular but unknown town and its surrounding countryside. More than any other painter outside Raphael’s closest Roman circle, Garofalo imitated the style of the High Renaissance master. He was also influenced by the rich chiaroscuro effects and the intense colorism of Venetian painters Giorgione (ca. 1477/78-before 1510) and Titian (ca. 1485/90-1576), and that of his Ferrarese colleague, Dosso Dossi.