Virgin and Child with an Angel

In this humanizing yet idealized depiction of the Virgin Mary embracing the baby Jesus, Sandro Botticelli conveys the sacred beauty of maternal love. Mary, expression soft and skin luminous, nuzzles her son’s chubby cheek as he grasps the nape of her neck. An angel, smaller in scale, looks on adoringly. Celebrated in his own time, Botticelli developed a distinctly sentimental and tactile style of painting for both religious and secular subjects.