Madonna and Child with two angels,
oil on panel, 55 x 33 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

The painting is registered in the Fototeca Zeri under no. 25582 (as Maestro di Lonigo).

The Master of Lonigo was active in the Veneto during the first half of the 15th century, whose name derives from a Madonna and Child conserved until recently in the Duomo of Lonigo near Vicenza.
The corpus of the artist´s works comprise of small panels depicting the Madonna and Child, such as the present work. The present Madonna and Child is a typical work by the Master with the Madonna seated on a cushion resting on a flowery meadow bordered a hedge; a hortus conclusus whose leafy backdrops suggested by the green triangles from which leaves branch out; in her lap she holds the Child, tenderly turning her face towards him, raising her hands in prayer. The Child gently holds her veil with his left hand, almost wanting to draw it towards him, while with his right he makes a gesture of blessing.

The iconography of the Madonna sitting on a cushion on the ground is that of Our Lady of Humility, whose first prototype known in the Veneto is the fresco by Lorenzo Veneziano in the Church of Sant’Anastasia in Verona which dates from around the middle of the 14th century. The iconography was widely adopted by later artists, first of all by Gentile da Fabriano, who contributed to the diffusion of the detailed international Gothic style in the Veneto; this would have filtered through local examples certainly seen by this anonymous artist from Lonigo. Indeed, the virtuoso use of line, the decorative richness and the sweetness of the gestures all suggest that the painter must have been trained among the artists active in the early decades of the 15th century in the Veneto, which included such painters as Zanino di Pietro and Jacobello del Fiore, who assimilated the refined courtly style, learned also from Michelino da Besozzo, who had been active in Vicenza.