Madonna of Humility

Olivuccio di Ciccarello was an Adriatic painter active in Ancona and the Marche region, whose work reflects the diverse artistic currents flowing through Italy's eastern seaboard in the late Trecento. This Madonna of Humility of around 1387, now in the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts the Virgin seated humbly on the ground, an iconographic type that originated in Siena and became one of the most beloved Marian images across late Gothic Italy. The Marchigian context adds Adriatic Byzantine echoes to the fundamentally Tuscan composition.

Executed in egg tempera on panel with gold ground, the painting combines the tender intimacy of the Madonna of Humility type with Olivuccio's characteristic linear precision and warm, luminous color harmonies typical of late Trecento Marchigian painting.