Madonna mit Kind und Johannes dem Täufer

Pontormo worked on this in Florence around 1529, while an imperial and papal army sat outside the walls laying siege to the city and its short-lived republic. He never finished it. The Virgin leans forward to gather the Christ Child and the small John the Baptist, her twisting, muscular body clearly learned from Michelangelo, whom Pontormo revered. Strange shadows press in from the edges, and the mood is closer to grief than tenderness, as if the coming death of Christ were already in the room. The panel was later taken down after critics turned on Pontormo, and it sat forgotten in storage until an art historian pulled it back to light in 1907.