The Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian

Crivelli's 1491 Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian belongs to the last phase of his career, when he was producing altarpieces of increasingly elaborate decorative complexity for patrons across the Marche. Francis and Sebastian were among the most popular plague-saints, and their pairing here suggests a devotional commission connected to protection from disease. The work is close in date to his celebrated Annunciation with Saint Emidius of 1486 (London, National Gallery), and shares its astonishing combination of architectural detail, botanical still-life elements, and intense religious emotion.

Elaborate garland of fruits and vegetables in Crivelli's characteristic hyper-real still-life manner frames the upper register — a decorative convention he developed more elaborately than any contemporary. Sebastian's arrow-pierced body is rendered with the same fine detail as the fruits, the wounds described individually. The Virgin's throne is an architectural fantasia of carved marble and damask.