Datable to the 1510s, this Virgin and Child encapsulates the clarity and serenity that characterises the best of this painter's devotional art. Lo Spagna—whose nickname is due to his Spanish origins—was active in Umbria, primarily in Perugia, Todi, Trevi and Spoleto, during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. A gifted pupil of Perugino (c. 1469; d. 1523), he perfected a style that reflects the graceful figures, limpid colouring and balanced compositions of the master, though his work is distinctive enough in its charm and subtle individuality to set it apart from the many paintings produced in Perugino’s manner.

Seated in a landscape and set against a sky of graduated blue, the Virgin and Christ Child gaze directly at the viewer. The Virgin gently steadies the standing Christ, who raises his right hand in a gesture of blessing. This jewel of a painting is similar in its design and dimensions to a painting once in the convent of Montesanto in Todi, today in the collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris (fig. 1),¹ in which the Madonna—a close counterpart to this one—stands with the Child in her arms. As here, they too are flanked by trees, with blue hills beyond, while the Virgin’s robe in this painting is more elaborate than in the Louvre panel—the lining a brighter green, its edges embellished with a gold band of pseudo-Kufic script. Another even smaller painting datable to the 1510s, similar in composition to the present work and with the Christ Child making the same gesture of benediction, is now in the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.² The figures of the mother and child most closely resemble those in the detached fresco of The Virgin and Child with four Saints, painted in the Rocca of Spoleto in about 1515 and now in the Pinacoteca Comunale.³

Documented in Perugia in 1504, and perhaps there already in 1470, Lo Spagna in his early work adopts a style that is more closely aligned with that of Perugino, while in his later career, his devotional paintings show a greater debt to Raphael. Here, Lo Spagna offers his own refined interpretation of Raphael’s archetypal depictions of the Madonna and Child, one notable example being his Virgin and Child, of about 1503, housed today in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena (fig. 2). The work’s small scale suggests it was intended for a private setting, suited to personal devotion and reflection.

¹ Inv. 420; oil on panel, 41 x 32 cm.; A. Brejon de Lavergnée and D. Thiébaut (eds), Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du musée du Louvre. II. Italie, Espagne, Allemagne, Grande-Bretagne et divers, Paris 1981, p. 299.
² ГЭ-5508; tempera on panel, 21 x 16 cm.; F. Gualdi Sabatini, Giovanni di Pietro detto Lo Spagna, Spoleto 1984, vol. I, pp. 160–61, no. 18, reproduced vol. II, pl. 38.
³ Gualdi Sabatini 1984, vol. I, pp. 172–78, no. 28, reproduced vol. II, pls 49–57.