The Virgin and Child with Saints

Raffaellino del Garbo painted this Virgin and Child with Saints around 1510 for the National Gallery. Raffaellino's later works show a painter struggling to maintain relevance as the High Renaissance transformed Florentine artistic standards beyond the late-quattrocento formulas he had mastered. The tempera-on-panel medium required a carefully gessoed surface and was painted in fine, precise layers, yielding a luminous, jewel-like surface of great durability.

The sacra conversazione demonstrates Raffaellino's solid if increasingly conservative Florentine technique, with clear drawing and bright color in the tradition of his master Filippino Lippi.