Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels

Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels from 1575 is attributed to Bernardino Luini but likely represents the continued production of his workshop or followers after his death. The enthroned Madonna format indicates a formal altarpiece commission for an institutional setting. Oil on canvas — by the sixteenth century the dominant medium for ambitious works — allowed successive glazes of transparent color and freedom to rework the composition. Luini's absorption of Leonardo's sfumato technique—the soft, atmospheric modeling that dissolves contours in shadow—was more thorough and more commercially successful than any other Lombard follower, making him the primary vehicle for Leonardo's

The formal composition follows Luini's devotional models, with the enthroned Madonna and attendant angels rendered in the gentle, idealized manner of his school.