Madonna with the Siskin

Durer painted this in Venice in 1506, and he made sure you would know it. On the little table at the lower left he left a note in his own hand saying a German, Albrecht Durer, made this in the year 1506. He was in the middle of a long stay in Venice, learning what Italian painters did with warm colour and soft light, and writing home about how the local artists both admired and resented him. The picture takes its name from the small siskin, a kind of finch, perched on the Christ child's raised arm. Around them Durer laid a wreath of red and white roses, held up by two hovering cherubs, over a wide landscape dotted with ruins and farmsteads.