Virgin and Child

Mantegna usually painted the Madonna as a grave, almost stony figure. This small one, made for private prayer rather than a church, is the warm exception among them, the mother drawing the child in close. Look at the baby's wrist. He wears a little bracelet of red coral, which people of the time hung on infants as a charm against harm, and which also quietly points ahead to Christ's blood and death. The deep blue was ground from lapis lazuli, a stone carried all the way from the mountains of Afghanistan and worth more by weight than gold. Mantegna made pictures like this late in life, after his long years working for the Gonzaga court at Mantua.