Madona Solly

This is very early Raphael, painted around 1500 when he was barely out of his teens, and you can still feel the hand of his teacher Perugino in the calm sweet faces. But watch what the young painter does with attention. Mary reads a book, and instead of gazing out at us the Christ child turns to look at the same page, so mother and child share one point of focus. In his hand he holds a small goldfinch. That bird was said to feed among thorns and thistles, which is why painters gave it to the infant Christ as a quiet sign of the suffering to come. The name comes not from Raphael but from a later owner, Edward Solly, an English banker who gathered a great collection in Berlin in the early 19th century.