Madonna and Child

Artist Master with the Parrot (Flemish, active about 1530)

Dateearly 1500s

Mediumoil on panel

Dimensionspanel: 47 x 39.4 cm (18 1/2 x 15 1/2 in.)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineBequest of Amy Bess Miller

Terms

wood

Object number2006.334

Label TextThe Master with the Parrot is best understood not as a single artist, but as a group of painters connected through one workshop based in Antwerp. As their client base expanded throughout Europe, they adapted a monumental style heavily affected by Italian Renaissance painting. Images of Mary breastfeeding Christ were common throughout the Renaissance. The nursing expresses the tender relation of mother and child, but milk also had symbolic associations with the blood of Christ, so this image would have been understood as prefiguring the Crucifixion. Provenance1919, The Smith Collection, Worcester, MA; to his niece, Amy Bess Miller, Pittsfield, MA

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