Virgin and Child

1505 · Private collection

religious

The Virgin and Child are represented beside a window with a landscape beyond. The landscape shown through the window at right is painted with a remarkable looseness. The trees, some fine and long limbed, others made full with layered rows of browning leaves, are reminiscent of those in the background of Fra Bartolomeo's Noli Me Tangere in the Louvre.

About the Artist

Mariotto Albertinelli

1474 – 1515

Florentine painter, trained by Cosimo Rosselli, in whose studio he met Fra Bartolomeo. The two went into partnership in 1508, but soon after this Albertinelli temporarily abandoned painting to become an innkeeper, saying (according to Vasari) that he was fed up with criticism and wanted a 'less difficult and more cheerful craft'. Vasari also says he was a 'restless man, a follower of Venus, and a good liver.' His paintings are elegant but rather insipid. His best work is the Visitation (1503) in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

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