Virgin and Child with Angels

Fra Filippo Lippi's Virgin and Child with Angels from around 1460 is one of his most celebrated works, depicting the Madonna with a sweetness and humanity that distinguished his religious art from the more austere approach of his contemporaries. Lippi was a protégé of the Medici family — Cosimo de' Medici personally guaranteed his release from Carmelite obligations — and his devotional panels served the private piety of Florence's mercantile elite. His Madonna type, with her downcast gaze, rosy complexion, and the intimate relationship with the infant Christ, created a model of feminine religious beauty that influenced Botticelli and subsequent generations of Florentine painters. The angels with their characteristic curved wings became one of Lippi's most distinctive and copied motifs.

Executed in tempera and gold on wood panel, Lippi's refined line work and soft modeling of flesh tones create an intimate devotional image, with the gold ground providing a luminous sacred backdrop.