Madonna and Child Enthroned

These three panels are from an altarpiece painted for a Dominican church in the Marchigian town of Ascoli Piceno. It is possible that the child was originally shown reaching for a flying bird, his frequent attribute. The cracked marble dais is a recurrent feature of Crivelli's work. On it are two pears, symbolic of the Fall of Man, and a fly, conceivably an emblem of Satan. Crivelli loved visual tricks, and the shadow cast by the fly gives a disturbingly realistic quality.

Saint George (fourth century) is shown in contemporary, fifteenth-century armor with the dragon he slew. For more information about these paintings, including a reconstruction of the altarpiece, visit metmuseum.org.

The Virgin, her head turned to the left, is seated on a polychrome marble throne with an arched top before which hangs a cloth of honor. A white veil covers her forehead, and an elaborately patterned gold brocade cloak with a green lining falls over her shoulders and sweeps across her lap. She delicately steadies the infant Christ, who is turned toward the right, his legs straddling her lap and his arms outstretched. In front of the throne is a broken marble dais on which, to the right, are two small pears and a fly. The pears may be symbols of the Virgin and Christ or of the Fall of Man. The fly has been explained by André Pigler (1964) as a device to protect the picture from flyspecks rather than as a symbol of evil or sin, but it may also be a symbol of Satan (Lightbown 2004). The elaborately tooled gold background must originally have terminated in a pointed arch but has been cut. The date was originally inscribed as 1473 and then changed by Crivelli to 1472, possibly due to confusion as to which regional calendar pertained; it seems likely that Crivelli completed the altarpiece after December 25, 1472, and before March 25, 1473.

The composition has received much comment (see especially Lightbown 2004). Motifs such as the prominently cracked marble at the right reflect Crivelli's training in Padua. The action of the Child, usually interpreted as a visual link to the lateral figure of a saint, may have been directed at a flying bird, the symbol of Christ's Passion. The composition is intimately tied to that of the central panel of the Montefiore Altarpiece (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels), which is not dated but would seem logically to precede the MMA picture. It also provides the best visual evidence for mentally reconstructing the arched top of the MMA work. Read more...

(Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art)