Die Jungfrau und das Kind mit zwei Engeln

In Florence in the 1470s the busiest artist's workshop in the city belonged to Andrea del Verrocchio, goldsmith, sculptor and painter, and the man who trained the young Leonardo da Vinci. A workshop meant many hands, and this panel was made by more than one. Verrocchio painted the Virgin. His pupil Lorenzo di Credi, still in his twenties, painted the plump Christ Child, the drawn-back curtains and the angel on the right. You can almost tell them apart at the angels' hands: Lorenzo smooths the flesh, while Verrocchio, a sculptor at heart, insists on the knuckles and joints working underneath the skin. When the National Gallery bought the picture in 1857, nobody knew any of this. It was sold to them as a Piero della Francesca.