The Madonna

Defendente Ferrari's Madonna belongs to the Piedmontese master's production of intimate devotional Virgin and Child images for the regional church and aristocratic market. Ferrari's Virgin figures are characterized by the Flemish-influenced softness he absorbed through the Savoy court's collection of northern European paintings, combined with the warm golden light of his native Piedmontese tradition. These devotional images served the private religious life of northern Italian patrons in communities that were geographically and culturally positioned between the great Italian centers and the transmontane Flemish artistic world.

The devotional composition is rendered with attention to the expressive and contemplative qualities that served the painting's function as an aid to prayer and meditation.