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Virgin and Child

Ercole de'Roberti (Italian, 1455/56–1496)

1490–96

Medium: Tempera or oil on panel
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: 52 × 35 cm (20 1/2 × 13 3/4 in.); Framed: 68 × 51.8 × 7 cm (26 3/4 × 20 3/8 × 2 3/4 in.)
Culture: Italy
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Rights: Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

About this work

Ercole de’ Roberti’s painting of the Virgin and Child is calm, expressing a gentle melancholy. The artist’s mannerisms are evident in the exaggerated, slender fingers of the Virgin, which seem to barely hold the Christ Child, even as they press into his flesh. Ercole worked in Bologna and, from 1486, in Ferrara, where he was associated with the sophisticated court of the ruling Este family, who supported the arts, sciences, literature, and philosophy.