  About the Artwork
  
  
  Italian painters of the Renaissance strove to humanize their figures in order to narrow the gap between worshiper and divine personages. In Perugino's depiction of the Madonna and Child, no throne or cloth of honor is included to signify their exalted status, only discrete halos. A Renaissance viewer would have recognized that the red robe signifies that the Madonna is a sovereign and the personification of Divine Love. Her blue cloak, the symbolic color of Heavenly Love and Truth, is marked on the shoulder by a gold star, which refers to one of her titles, Stella Maris, "Star of the Sea and Port of Our Salvation." The lack of interaction between mother and baby and their aloofness keep this devotional Image from becoming entirely secularized.
  
  
  Title
  Madonna and Child
  
  
  Artwork Date
  ca. 1500
  
  Artist
  Pietro Perugino
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1450-1523
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  Italian
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Tempera on wood panel
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 31 3/4 × 25 1/2 inches (80.6 × 64.8 cm)
  Framed: 50 1/8 × 42 1/2 × 5 1/4 inches (127.3 × 108 × 13.3 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Painting
  
  
  Credit
  Bequest of Eleanor Clay Ford
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  77.3
  
  
  Copyright
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