The Madonna and Child in a landscape with Saint Elizabeth and the Infant Saint John the Baptist

Fra Bartolomeo, the Dominican friar-painter of San Marco in Florence, created this Madonna and Child in a Landscape with Saint Elizabeth around 1516. After a religious crisis inspired by Savonarola led him to burn his studies of nudes and enter the Dominican order, Fra Bartolomeo developed a monumental devotional style that profoundly influenced Raphael. The oil medium allowed for rich tonal transitions and glazed layers of color that created luminous depth impossible with the older tempera technique.

The panel demonstrates Fra Bartolomeo's characteristic monumental figure groups set against atmospheric landscape, with the rich tonal modeling and balanced composition that made his devotional works exemplary.