Virgin and Child with Angels Seated on Cloud

Jacopo da Sellaio painted this devotional image of the Virgin and Child with Angels Seated on Cloud around 1487. While known primarily for his narrative cassone panels, Sellaio also produced devotional works for Florentine patrons. This composition's celestial setting, with the Virgin enthroned on clouds among angels, follows a devotional type popular in late fifteenth-century Florence. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting.

Tempera on panel with delicate figure drawing and the bright, clear palette typical of Sellaio's devotional works. The cloud-borne figures create an ethereal composition suited to contemplative prayer.