Madonna and Child

The Madonna and Child from 1520 at the Walters Art Museum represents one of Perugino's latest surviving works, painted when the artist was in his seventies. By this date, his style had been thoroughly superseded by the innovations of the younger generation, but churches and patrons in smaller Umbrian towns continued to commission works in his established manner. The Walters' Renaissance collection includes this late example of Perugino's enduring devotional formula.

The late Madonna and Child follows the compositional and technical formulas Perugino had refined over decades. His handling in these final works sometimes shows the looseness of age, though the essential characteristics—luminous color, smooth modeling, sweet expression—remain. The familiar devotional format is executed with the practiced ease of a lifetime's experience.