Charity Surrounded by Children Playing with Dogs and Hobby Horses

Domenico Beccafumi's Charity Surrounded by Children is a rare secular allegorical subject from this Sienese master, whose work consisted primarily of religious commissions for Siena's churches and the Palazzo Pubblico's civic programs. The personification of Charity with children was an established allegorical formula, the nursing mother or child-surrounded woman representing the cardinal virtue in accessible human terms. Beccafumi's characteristic expressive color and dynamic figure composition give this secular allegory the visual energy he brought to his most ambitious religious works, the playful children enlivening the scene with naturalistic observation.

The painting demonstrates the technical conventions and artistic vocabulary of the period, with attention to composition, color, and the rendering of form appropriate to the subject.