The Virgin and Child Embracing

The Virgin and Child Embracing of 1672, now in London's National Gallery, represents one of Sassoferrato's late works — painted when the artist was in his mid-sixties and his style had achieved its fullest refinement. The intimate subject of mother and child in physical embrace adds a tenderness unusual in Sassoferrato's output, which more often presents Madonna and Child in formal frontality. The National Gallery's acquisition places this work among the finest Italian devotional paintings in British public collections, where it entered in the nineteenth century as part of the broader wave of Italian primitive and devotional collecting. The 1672 date is significant: Sassoferrato died around 1685, and works from this period show the sustained productivity of his old age. The composition may reflect influence from Flemish devotional painting traditions that had long circulated in Italy, where the motif of the embracing Madonna and Child appears in Flemish-influenced Italian workshops from the fifteenth century onward.

The late date is visible in a slight softening of the contour precision characteristic of Sassoferrato's middle period, with broader, more fluid brushwork in the drapery. The Child's flesh is rendered with exceptional delicacy, using very thin glazes over a warm ground to achieve a translucent, almost porcelain quality. The embrace motif required careful compositional adjustment to maintain the formal clarity Sassoferrato valued.