Virgin and Child, known as the Madonna del Libro

This late Virgin and Child (Madonna del Libro) dates to around 1545, from Pontormo's final creative period when his style had become increasingly abstract and emotionally extreme. The artist spent his last years obsessively working on the San Lorenzo frescoes in Florence, which were so radical that they provoked controversy even among sympathetic contemporaries. This intimate devotional work shares the intensity of those final projects. Pontormo's revolutionary use of acid, dissonant color—pinks without shadow, glacial blues, pale greens—abandoned the tonal harmony of his teacher Andrea del Sarto for a chromatic world of unsettling psychological intensity.

The Madonna's elongated proportions and the painting's cool, ethereal color palette reflect Pontormo's late style at its most attenuated. The handling of paint has become lighter and more transparent, creating an almost spectral quality that distinguishes these final works.