Madonna and Child with an Angel

In 1479 Milan belonged to the Sforza dukes, and the painter most in demand across Lombardy was Vincenzo Foppa. Leonardo da Vinci had not yet arrived from Florence to change what a picture could look like here. This small panel was made for private prayer, the sort of image a family kept close. Foppa draws a curtain aside as if you had just stepped into the room, and behind the Madonna and Child a window opens onto a plain interior, daylight resting on the sill. The Child reaches out while an angel steadies him. Foppa led Lombard painting for a generation, and he made this only a few years before Leonardo settled in the city in 1482.