Created for private devotional purposes, this painting has been cropped on all four sides. It represents the Madonna of Humility, with the Virgin Mary tenderly embracing the Christ Child. The painting shows a combination of two iconographic subjects – the Nostra Donna de humilitate, launched in about 1340 by Simone Martini during his sojourn at the Papal Court in Avignon, and the Virgo lactans, the Virgin nursing the Child, so as to emphasize Mary’s role as mater et nutrix omnium. This particular variant flourished in Venice, where it became widespread after the appearance of a few celebrated works painted by Lorenzo Veneziano starting in the late 1350s, the date of the Virgin of the Rosary (1359) in Santa Anastasia in Verona. Like some of the paintings by Lorenzo, this panel originally had a golden sunburst just below the Madonna’s neckline, as indicated by the mark left by the resinous base for gilding. This detail further defines the Virgin as Regina Coeli, sumptuously “dressed as the sun,” as in the Book of Revelation. Resembling Lorenzo, too, is the orange-tinged robe worn over the Child’s transparent shirt, which places the author somewhere between Giovanni da Bologna and Catarino Veneziano, with elements that might bring to mind the Master of the Maastricht Madonna, though distinct from that hand for a more enhanced sense of volume.
