The "Madonna with Child" by Marco Basaiti dates from c. 1500. It unites the close-up of the half-length Madonna icon figure with a landscape background. Even though the gold ground has been abandoned in favour of greater realism, the landscape here still remains a flat background, without perceptible depth. Both the figure of the Mother and the Christ Child are still in the tradition of the Byzantine icon. He stands on a rock slab that suggests his later tomb. Yet triumph over death is also anticipated in the fact that the child is standing, and in his gesture of blessing. The child’s sharply outlined shadow and the darker front edge of the slab transform the two-dimensional structure into a plinth leading into the abyss. A degree of sharpness in the modelling and bold light-anddark contrasts lend the figures a sculptural quality.
Basaiti worked in Venice in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, from whose Pietà (c. 1470, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) he borrowed the structure of the tomb. Basaiti favoured stronger colours than his master, as can be seen clearly in Mary’s garments in canonical blue and red. |
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Oil on panel cradled
height 64 cm, width 51 cm
Signed at bottom: .BAXAITI.P. (the line above is no longer legible)
Inv.-No. GE846
Provenance: 1887 acquired by Prince Johann II von Liechtenstein from Guggenheim in Venice
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