La Vierge à l'Enfant

Durer signed this small panel in 1512, and within a year or two he would step away from painting almost entirely, pouring himself into the engravings that carried his name across Europe. That makes intimate works like this one rare. The Virgin leans over the infant against a plain black ground, and the child holds a slice of pear, an old symbol of Christ's love offered to the world. Durer had crossed the Alps into Italy twice by now, and it shows. The gentle smile comes from the Netherlandish painting he admired, while the child's twisting, muscular little body is borrowed from the Italians. He built that solid flesh out of the finest gradations of shadow.