Madonna and Child

In February 1598 Lucrezia d'Este, Duchess of Urbino, died in Ferrara in the same weeks that her family lost the city to the pope. She had left everything to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, the pope's nephew, who had come to take Ferrara over. This small panel, barely a foot high, was probably among her pictures, and it reached the Borghese much later, when Olimpia Aldobrandini married Paolo Borghese. The gallery dates it to around 1517 or 1518 and calls it the only time Dosso painted this subject on its own. The Virgin points down and away, while the Child on her knee lifts one hand. X-rays show that Dosso first began a figure of Saint Joseph, left it as a sketch and covered it with a dark backdrop. Behind the pair, a few quick strokes make misty trees and a flock of sheep at pasture.