Madonna and Child, or Nursing Madonna

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio's Madonna and Child, or Nursing Madonna, now in the Brooklyn Museum, reflects his position as the most accomplished pupil of Leonardo da Vinci in Milan. Boltraffio's devotional panels were prized for their elegant fusion of Leonardo's sfumato with a more refined, decorative sensibility. The oil medium allowed for rich tonal transitions and glazed layers of color that created luminous depth impossible with the older tempera technique. Such devotional panels served both liturgical contexts in churches and chapels and private devotional use in the homes of wealthy families who maintained personal altars and oratories.

The painting demonstrates Boltraffio's mastery of Leonardesque soft modeling in the Madonna's features, with the subtle gradations of light and shadow and the idealized beauty that distinguished his devotional works from other Milanese Leonardeschi.