Madonna col Bambino

In Florence around 1490 Botticelli ran one of the busiest workshops in the city, and images of the Virgin and Child left it in numbers, some from his own hand, many from assistants working to his designs. This panel sits in exactly that uncertain space. It has long been attributed to Botticelli, though it went almost unnoticed by scholars, and opinion still divides over whether he painted it himself or someone in his shop did. Behind the mother and child two small windows open onto a distant landscape, a quiet glimpse of the wider world let into a private devotional image. It hangs today in the Stibbert, a Florentine house-museum far better known for its armour than for its paintings.