Madonna col Bambino, san Giovanni Battista e santa Caterina d'Alessandria

Perugino ran one of the busiest workshops in Italy, and he was not shy about reusing a good design. This calm, symmetrical panel of the Virgin and Child flanked by John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria comes from the same cartoon, the same full-size pattern, that he used for two other Madonnas now in Vienna and Frankfurt. The three barely differ. That efficiency was part of his fame around 1495, when he was among the most sought-after painters alive and a young Raphael was learning in his orbit. The Madonna's gentle face was reportedly modelled on his own wife, Chiara Fancelli. Behind them opens the soft, hazy Umbrian valley he painted better than anyone.