Madonna and Child

The Lenti Madonna, Bache Madonna, or Madonna and Child is a tempera and gold painting that was painted on a wooden panel by the Italian Renaissance artist, Carlo Crivelli, in the early 1470s to the late 1480s. The Lenti Madonna's object dimensions, overall, are or. With the painted surface alone, the painting is or. This painting is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The painting is small in size, which can hint to its intended purpose for private devotion for the painting’s original patron. This painting depicts a popular iconographic religious scene of the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus close to her chest. Crivelli’s Lenti Madonna is artistically decorated with biblical symbols that were common for the time it was created. A few common but important objects of symbolism would include: the hanging apples and pickle surroundings Mary’s head, the lone fly, and the European Goldfinch that Baby Jesus is holding in his hands. Even though the painting is small in size, it has a lot of details within the fabrics and textures, which have resulted in a hyper-realistic style that can be traced back to Flemish art.