Mary with child

Konrad Witz's Mary with Child, painted around 1430 for the Kunstmuseum Basel, presents the devotional subject with his revolutionary approach to physical reality. Witz's Madonnas have a tangible, earthbound quality that anticipates later fifteenth-century developments in Northern European painting Egg tempera on panel was the dominant technique of the period, demanding careful layer-by-layer construction and patient craftsmanship The work is now in the collection of Kunstmuseum Basel.

The Madonna and Child are rendered with Witz's signature volumetric solidity, the heavy drapery and firmly modeled forms creating an impression of physical presence unusual in devotional images of this period.