Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and an angel

Around 1480 Botticelli was one of the busiest painters in Medici Florence, only a couple of years from being called to Rome to help fresco the walls of the Sistine Chapel. Alongside the large mythologies like the Primavera, his workshop turned out devotional Madonnas like this one by the dozen, for the homes and private chapels of Florentine families. Mary holds the Christ child while the infant John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence, looks on beside an angel. The tender, faintly melancholy faces and the clear flowing line are Botticelli's own. Pictures like this were the steady work of a busy Florentine workshop, painted to hang above a bed or a small family altar.