La Vierge et l'Enfant

La Vierge et l'Enfant, also at the Musée du Petit Palais in Avignon, is a small devotional panel characteristic of the intimate Madonna-and-Child format produced in large numbers by Florentine workshops to meet the demand from private households for domestic devotional images. Neri di Bicci's bottega produced many such panels, adapting compositions from more famous masters like Lippi and Fra Angelico and delivering them at a range of prices depending on the fineness of execution and the richness of materials.

The Madonna and Child are placed in a three-quarter bust format common to domestic devotional panels, with Mary's blue mantle handled in azurite—a less expensive pigment than the ultramarine used in larger, more prestigious works. The Child's engagement with his mother is rendered with the gentle animation that characterizes the workshop's better small-format panels.