The Virgin and Child with Angels

The work of an anonymous painter from the Flemish city of Bruges, this vibrant devotional image was originally the left wing of a diptych, as the remnants of two hinges on the right edge of its original frame indicate. It depicts the Virgin, wearing a red dress trimmed with costly pearls and jewels, placed before a brocade cloth ornamented with palmettes and held by two angels. Six more angels hover in prayer, forming an arch around her bright golden aureole. It is likely that the right wing for this panel is a portrait of the Italian banker Lodovico Portinari (now in Philadelphia), whose powerful family represented the interests of the Medici in Flanders. Hinged to Portinari’s portrait, the painting would have offered intimate, perpetual access to the Virgin and Child, who are made present in an image of visionary splendor. Italian bankers and merchants admired the work of Northern artists, and Portinari likely commissioned this work while living in Bruges.