Madonna and Child with Two Donors

about 1525–1530

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

87.6 × 118.1 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-137005

The Virgin Mary tenderly holds Christ on her lap, while the donors who commissioned this panel kneel below them, their eyes raised in reverence. The Christ child meets their gaze as he rewards their piety with a blessing. A fig branch is visible in the frame of the window in the background, a symbol of Christ's resurrection. Lotto divides his composition in two, framing the Virgin and Christ child with swathes of drapery, while the space inhabited by the kneeling couple is distinctly delineated: they are positioned against a wall with a window which opens onto a view of a distant landscape. The appearance of the figures on either side of the composition is characteristically different. The Virgin’s brightly-colored robes contrast with the somber dress of the donors. Lotto has depicted mother and child in twisting, angular poses, with the Madonna balancing in contrapposto, while the kneeling couple are shown in profile, in rigid, upright positions. This division serves to emphasize the contrast between the earthly and the spiritual realms, but might also be explained by the fact that the figures of the Virgin and her son are thought to have been borrowed from a composition by anot…