Virgin and Child with Angels (1405): Art, History and Details

Virgin and Child with Angels (1405) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Spinello Aretino (Italian, 1350/52–1410).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This central panel from an altarpiece shows the Madonna seated on a throne with the infant Christ, surrounded by kneeling angels and six-winged seraphim. Below is an image of the dead Christ flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John. Above the arch is the Blessing Christ after his ascent into heaven and two more angels who gaze down on the main scene. Together these images extol the role of the Madonna in the redemption of humankind. Spinello Aretino was a painter of devotional panels, altarpieces, and frescos. His most important commissions were painted in Arezzo, Lucca, Florence, Pisa, and Siena. His concern for space and the powerful outlines of his figures reflect a greater understanding of the principles developed by Giotto and his contemporaries, yet his keen sense of decoration reveals an equal awareness of Sienese painting.

Object facts

• Title: Virgin and Child with Angels
• Date: 1405
• Creator attribution: Spinello Aretino (Italian, 1350/52–1410)
• Culture: Italy, early 15th Century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: tempera and gold on wood panel
• Dimensions: Framed: 156.5 x 70.5 x 12.5 cm (61 5/8 x 27 3/4 x 4 15/16 in.); Unframed: 156.5 x 70.7 cm (61 5/8 x 27 13/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Medieval Art
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1977.145

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Fahy, Everett. “A Madonna by Spinello Aretino.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 65, no. 8 (October 1978): 260–267.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Sketchbook: Michelangelo: Mind of the Master. Cleveland Museum of Art; Cleveland, Ohio, 2019.
• Fahy, Everett, Andrea De Marchi, and Elisabetta Sambo. Studi sulla pittura toscana del Rinascimento = Studies in Tuscan Reinassance painting. Bologna : Fondazione Federico Zeri ; Roma : Officina Libraria, 2020.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.