聖母子

Simon Vouet was the most sought-after painter in Paris when he made this. He had spent years in Rome soaking up the warm colour and soft modelling of Italian art, and when Louis XIII called him home in 1627 he brought that manner with him and more or less reset the look of French painting. Tender half-length Virgins like this one were among his most wanted products. He painted more than a dozen close variations on the Madonna and her child, and his workshop turned many into prints that carried the design across France. The appeal is easy to see: a solid, gentle young mother, drapery in clear reds and blues, the child pressed warmly against her. Pictures like this hung in private rooms for prayer rather than on a church altar, which is why they were made at this intimate, human scale.