Madone Huldschinsky

The odd name of this Madonna comes from a man, not a place. Early in the 20th century it belonged to the Berlin collector Oscar Huldschinsky, and his red wax seal is still stuck to the back of the panel. The painting itself is much older, one of Crivelli's earliest works, from around 1460. As a young man he trained in Padua in the crowded workshop of Squarcione, the same forcing house that had just shaped the young Mantegna, and you can feel that schooling in the crisp, sculptural drawing of the Virgin and Child. He signed it proudly, Karolus Crivelli of Venice. It now lives a long way from either city, in the San Diego Museum of Art in California.