Madonna of the Book by Botticelli Postcard

Virgin and Child (The Madonna of the Book) by Sandro Botticelli, 1480, is a tempera painting on wood panel depicting Mary with the Christ child reading from a book on a desk in an interior room. Madonna and Child are ringed by delicate, golden haloes, and her robes are a magnificent deep blue, painted in natural ultramarine pigment, lapis lazuli. Beyond them through the window is a cool, Italian landscape with clear sky and trees. The Christ Child wears a small, golden crown of thorns as a bracelet around his wrist. Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was a Florentine painter of the of the early Italian Renaissance who apprenticed under the master Filippo Lippi. With strong Gothic influences, the mature work of Botticelli reflected a study of antique classical sculpture and was noted for its linear grace and rhythm, flattened relief-like forms with strong contours, and subtle colouring. The complexity of meanings in Botticelli’s compositions, from sources drawn from classical antiquity, mythology and philosophy, enthraled scholars for centuries.