Madonna and Child with Two Angels, Saint Rose and Saint Catherine

Around 1490 Pietro Perugino was arguably the most sought-after painter in Italy, running busy workshops in both Florence and his native Umbria and turning out calm, balanced altarpieces like this one. The Virgin sits with the Child between two angels, flanked by Saint Catherine and Saint Rose, everyone poised and unhurried. Behind them the hills soften into a pale, hazy distance, the gentle Umbrian landscape that became his signature. A few years after this a boy from nearby Urbino entered his workshop to learn exactly this kind of quiet symmetry: the young Raphael, whose early Madonnas echo these very poses.