Madonna and Child with Saints Elizabeth and John the Baptist
Jacopino del Conte
1535–1540
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 165.5 × 126.7 × 5.8 cm (65 3/16 × 49 15/16 × 2 5/16 in.); Framed: 198.5 × 159.6 × 32.3 cm (78 1/8 × 62 13/16 × 12 3/4 in.)
- Genre
- painting
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Styles
Tags
religionpaintingpaint16th CenturyJesusreligious figuresoil on paneloilVirgin and child/Madonna and childpanel paintingoil paint (paint)painting (image making)painting techniquesreligious scenesVirgin MarySaintsRenaissancewood (plant material)Christian subjectsreligiousMannerismMadonnabiblicalpanel (wood)european paintingChristianitySaint ElizabethSaint John the BaptistMadonna and Child
About
Mary holds the infant Jesus on her lap as she turns to her cousin Elizabeth, whose son, John the Baptist, kneels at her feet. John’s unlikely birth to the elderly Elizabeth prefigured Jesus’s miraculous birth, and John later preached to his divine cousin’s followers and baptized them into the faith. Here, the artist placed the biblical figures in a contemporary setting with recognizable elements of a 16th-century Florentine interior, including the portable terracotta vessel holding heated coals, called a brazier, and a fireplace made of gray sandstone (pietra serena). The artist, Jacopino del Conte, had a long career in Florence and Rome that bridged the early and late 16th century.