Distribution of Wine and Food on the Champs-Elysées

Giovanni Bellini's Madonna and Child (Madonna Corsini) of around 1487 is named for the Roman collection that preserved it through centuries of dispersal, and belongs to the systematic series of devotional Madonnas that formed the core of Bellini's sacred painting practice. The specific formal choices — the child's gesture, the Virgin's expression, the landscape glimpsed behind — create a distinctive devotional image that rewards sustained contemplation with the layered meanings Bellini embedded in all his Madonnas.

Boilly's miniaturist technique renders the festive crowd with extraordinary precision, differentiating hundreds of individual figures and expressions. The broad panoramic format and careful spatial organization create a vivid sense of public celebration.