Details

Title

Madonna and Child with Two Angels, St. Francis and St. Louis of Toulouse

Artist/Maker

Paolo di Giovanni Fei (Italian, ca. 1345–1411)

Date

ca. 1375

Medium

Tempera and silver gilding on panel

Dimensions

70 1/8 x 50 5/8 inches

Credit

Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Accession #

58.42

Location

On View - Stent Family Wing, Level 2, Gallery 204

In this altarpiece that originally may have hung in a Franciscan chapel, the Christ child’s gesture invites us to draw near, into the realm of angels. Kneeling in the foreground are St. Francis of Assisi on the left—identifiable by his humble burlap robe and the stigmata on his hands resembling the wounds of the crucified Christ—and St. Louis of Toulouse on the right, who became a Franciscan monk after renouncing his right to the French throne, symbolized by the cast-off crown at his feet.