Madonna and Child

This intimate Madonna and Child by the Master of the Magdalen dates to around 1280, when Florentine painters were gradually softening the rigid formality of Byzantine models. The work exemplifies the small-scale devotional panels that were increasingly commissioned by private patrons and confraternities in late Duecento Florence. The Magdalen Master's prolific workshop produced numerous such icons, establishing visual conventions that would persist until Giotto's transformative innovations.

Egg tempera on a small gold-ground panel, the work shows the Magdalen Master's distinctive treatment of the Virgin's veil with delicate parallel lines. The Child sits frontally on the Madonna's left arm in the Hodegetria type, with flesh tones built up in thin green-earth underlayers.