Plaque with Virgin and Child

1580–1600

Italian
Probably Rome

Opus sectile, or the art of inlaying stones, was a form of ancient Roman decoration revived during the 16th century in Milan, Rome, and Florence. It was employed for the decoration of tabletops, cabinets, and other ecclesiastical and secular furnishings, and it combined marbles with hard stones like agate, which were much more difficult to cut, to form abstract patterns or images. This plaque would have been a small devotional object for a wealthy household and was probably made in Rome during the last quarter of the 16th century, when there was a revival of such decoration.

Status: On View, Gallery 205
Department: Applied Arts of Europe

Title: Plaque with Virgin and Child
Place: Italy (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1580–1600
Medium: Gilt bronze set against a field lapis lazuli, agate, and Sicilian jasper
Dimensions: 36.9 × 24.2 × 2.9 cm (14 1/2 × 9 1/2 × 1 1/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of The Antiquarian Society
Reference Number: 1905.70
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/40680/manifest.json

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.