Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph and an Angel

Raffaellino del Garbo painted this Madonna and Child with Saint Joseph and an Angel around 1511 for the Metropolitan Museum. Raffaellino was a Florentine painter who showed early promise as a pupil of Filippino Lippi but whose career declined as the High Renaissance style of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo transformed Florentine expectations. The tempera medium required careful preparation on a gessoed panel and a disciplined layering technique that produced precise, durable surfaces suited to the intricate detail expected of devotional painting.

The devotional panel reflects the late quattrocento Florentine tradition with clear drawing and bright color, showing the graceful figure types Raffaellino absorbed from Filippino Lippi.