MADONNA AND CHILD 1506, Raphael (1483–1520) Card

MADONNA AND CHILD 1506, Raphael (1483–1520) Card. The Madonna del Prato (Madonna of the Meadow), formally Madonna with the Christ Child and Saint John the Baptist, is an oil on board painting by Raphael, created in 1506, now held in Vienna. The painting was executed by twenty-three-year-old Raphael within months of his 1504–1505 arrival in Florence. The scene represents the figures of the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, and an infant John the Baptist shown in a calm grassy meadow, in a pyramidal arrangement linked by their gazes. Mary is wearing a gold-bordered blue mantle set against a red dress, extending her right leg along a diagonal. The blue symbolises the church and the red Christ's death, with the Madonna touching hands with Jesus the uniting of Mother Church with Christ's sacrifice.