The Virgin and Child with an Angel

The National Gallery dates this panel to about 1496 to 1500. It was the centre of the lower tier of an altarpiece Perugino made for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, for a side chapel in the Carthusian monastery at Pavia. Mary kneels straight on the grass of a meadow, a sign of her humility, while an angel holds up the plump Child and looks towards her. Perugino was showing what he could do in oil, building her face from many close shades of peach, cream and pink without hard outlines.

Infrared examination shows that he changed his mind several times. The three winged angels at the top were not in the first design and were painted over the sky, and they may have been added at the patron's request.