The Virgin and Child

The Italian city of Pisa, an important port, had commercial and cultural ties to Byzantium. Especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1204, painting there was strongly influenced by icons coming from the East. This painting is based on Byzantine icons of the Eleusa or “maternal” Virgin, a portrait of the Virgin and Child believed to have been painted by Saint Luke. Images from the East were accorded a special status as having an aura of authenticity and authority. Through the thirteenth century, European artists reproduced these images, borrowing both their style and iconography, and were seen as working in the “maniera greca” — the Greek or Byzantine mode of painting. Made by a painter associated with a similar image from the church of Saints Cosmos and Damian in Pisa, this painting adds a Tuscan-style arch to the rectangular panel commonly used in the East, yet depicts a half-length Virgin whose garments are highlighted with the gold lines (chrysography) typical of Byzantine paintings.