Virgin and Child

ca. 1325

The appeal of the icon and its remarkable power as a devotional image gradually led, in the West and Italy in particular, to the replacement of relics with painted works. The reredos made its appearance, accompanied in Italian painting by the theme of the Maestà, in which the Mother of God, the preferred intercessor of the faithful, plays the central role. This Virgin and Child, painted by the Pisan artist Francesco Traini (active 1321–65) as a panel of a now dismantled polyptych, also demonstrates the attachment to the Byzantine legacy – the gold background, subject and composition – and to the birth of the new Gothic influence spread by the Sienese School in the first half of the 14th century. A very fluid line is thus combined with volumes of great concision, while the taste for precious detail, the richness of the colours and the subtlety of the modelling contribute to a new form of representation imbued with emotion. The work encapsulates all the characteristics of the great revolution initiated by the Italian Primitives that heralded the Renaissance.