Follower of Fra Angelico (Italy, circa 1395–1455), Madonna and Child, circa 1450s or later, tempera and gold leaf on panel, Cincinnati Art Museum, Fanny Bryce Lehmer Fund, 1966.267

Audio Description

This painting, titled Madonna and Child, was made in the 1450s or later by a follower of the Italian artist Fra Angelico, who lived from about 1395 to 1455. It is a tempera painting with gold leaf on panel, and was acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum through the Fanny Bryce Lehmer Fund. Its accession number is 1966.267. 

In this small, circular painting, only about 9 inches across, the seated figure of the Virgin Mary occupies much of the composition. The background and frame are gilt and decorated with punched patterns. Mary is seated on a chair before a low wall, her left hand is supporting the Christ Child as he stands on her left knee, her right hand raised and holding a bird. They look toward one another, while the child reaches with both hands for the bird. Mary wears a pink robe with a blue cloak, the hood of which covers her blond hair. The cloak is lined with a green fabric that is visible where it hangs open as it drapes across her lap. The child is dressed in an orange garment, belted at his waist, and decorated with a pattern of gold flowers.

Label Copy

This painting, titled Madonna and Child, was made in the 1450s or later by a follower of the Italian artist Fra Angelico, who lived from about 1395 to 1455. It is a tempera painting with gold leaf on panel, and was acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum through the Fanny Bryce Lehmer Fund. Its accession number is 1966.267. 

This small devotional painting is characteristic of images produced in Florence in the mid-1400s. The realistic depiction of depth and volume and the tender gestures of the holy figures reflect the influence of Fra Angelico. However, recent examination of the painting’s materials and methods of making suggest that it may be all or, in large part, a nineteenth-century work. 

By 1940, the year he died while fleeing the German invasion of the Netherlands, the prominent Dutch dealer Jacques Goudstikker owned about 1,400 paintings. As war loomed, Goudstikker shipped some paintings to the United States, likely including the Madonna and Child, but the vast majority suffered a different fate. Knowing the exceptional quality of Goudstikker’s paintings, the Nazis forced the sale of his gallery, and Hermann Göring acquired many of them. Although two hundred of the stolen paintings were later returned to Goudstikker’s heirs—decades after the war and only after a lengthy legal process—more than a thousand remain untraced. 

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