Virgen con el Niño

By the 1490s Perugino was one of the most sought-after painters in Italy, running busy shops in both Florence and his native Umbria, and turning out serene Madonnas like this one around 1496. The formula was his own and much imitated: a calm, tender Virgin, a soft Umbrian valley receding behind her, everything balanced and unhurried. Around these same years a boy from nearby Urbino named Raphael was learning in his workshop, and you can see in pictures like this the gentleness the pupil would carry into his own Madonnas. Perugino's very success later counted against him, when tastes turned and his repeated sweetness came to look like a habit. This one stayed in Umbria and hangs in the regional gallery in Perugia.