Madonna Adoring the Christ Child
Giovanni Francesco da Rimini
Italian, ca. 1420–1470
![Madonna Adoring the Christ Child](https://dlc.services/iiif-img/16/6/6902_1678457865225/full/672,1024/0/default.jpg)
Details
Title
Madonna Adoring the Christ Child
Artist/Maker
Giovanni Francesco da Rimini (Italian, ca. 1420–1470)
Date
ca. 1460
Medium
Tempera on panel
Dimensions
32 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches
Credit
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Accession #
58.43
A tender and human Madonna is seen here in adoration of her sleeping child. John the Baptist kneels with his prophetic reed cross and looks up toward the coming of the Lord, who showers the Christ child with divine light. This work clearly resembles Fra Filippo Lippi’s Virgin Adoring the Child, but Giovanni has taken the figures out of Lippi’s grotto and placed them in a naturalistic, open landscape. There are attempts at both linear and atmospheric perspective, and gold is no longer used as the background color, breaking with the previous Gothic or Byzantine tradition.