The Virgin and Child with the young St John the Baptist and an Angel

The Master of Marradi painted this Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John and an Angel for the Ashmolean Museum. The addition of the infant Baptist and an attending angel to the Madonna composition was a popular Florentine variant that connected the devotional image to the city's patron saint. The tempera-on-panel medium required a carefully gessoed surface and was painted in fine, precise layers, yielding a luminous, jewel-like surface of great durability.

The panel follows Florentine conventions for the intimate multi-figure Madonna type, with clear drawing and bright tempera-based technique characteristic of the minor Florentine workshops active around 1500.