Virgin and Child with an Angel

In May 1453, at 14, Cosimo Rosselli entered the Florentine workshop of Neri di Bicci, a painter who kept a detailed account book of his commissions, his prices and his apprentices, and the boy stayed there until October 1456. Neri's shop turned out devotional Madonnas in large numbers for Florentine homes and churches. Rosselli painted this one around 1470, by then a master with a shop of his own.

The Virgin holds a single small rose between her fingers, and behind her an angel carries a white cloth heaped with more roses, the flower long associated with Mary. Through the window at the left, slim trees stand on green hills. The panel is painted in oil and tempera together. In 1930 Mary Holmes of Boston bought it from Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, a dealer and collector in Rome. Her husband, Edward Jackson Holmes, was then the museum's director, and she left the picture to the museum in 1964.