Madonna Casini

This panel is barely the size of a book, made around 1426 for the private prayers of one man, Antonio Casini, a churchman from Siena whose coat of arms is painted on the back. He was made a cardinal that year, which helps pin the date. Its Italian nickname is the Madonna of the Tickle. The Virgin lifts two fingers under her baby's chin, and he squirms and laughs and grabs her wrist, a flicker of ordinary family life inside a sacred image. Masaccio was one of the painters remaking Florentine art in these years, giving figures real weight and space, and even at this miniature scale the Child has the solidity of a small real body. He would be dead within two years, still in his twenties.