Virgin and Child with an Angel

1475/85

Sandro Botticelli
Italian, 1444/45–1510

In this humanizing yet idealized depiction of the Virgin Mary embracing the baby Jesus, Sandro Botticelli conveys the sacred beauty of maternal love. Mary, expression soft and skin luminous, nuzzles her son’s chubby cheek as he grasps the nape of her neck. An angel, smaller in scale, looks on adoringly. Celebrated in his own time, Botticelli developed a distinctly sentimental and tactile style of painting for both religious and secular subjects.

Status: On View, Gallery 204
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Sandro Botticelli
Title: Virgin and Child with an Angel
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality)
Date: 1475–1485
Medium: Tempera on panel
Dimensions: 85.8 × 59.1 cm (33 3/4 × 23 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Max and Leola Epstein Collection
Reference Number: 1954.283
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Adolfo Venturi, “Une Oeuvre inconnue de Botticelli,” Gazette des beaux-arts 3d ser., 38 (1907), pp. 5–11, ill.
J. A. Crowe and G. B. Cavalcaselle, A History of Painting in Italy, ed. R. Langton Douglas, 2d ed., vol. 4 (New York, 1911), 271.
Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana, vol. 7, pt. 1 (Milan, 1911), pp. 601–04, fig. 339.
Adolfo Venturi, Botticelli (London, 1925), p. 116, pl. CLXXXV.
Yukio Yashiro, Sandro Botticelli, vol. 1 (London and Boston, 1925), pp. 227, 234; rev. ed. (London and Boston, 1929), p. 239.
Wilhelm von Bode, Botticelli: Des Meisters Werke, Klassiker der Kunst 30 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1926), p. 4, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin 22 (1928), pp. 76, 82, cover ill.
Old Masters in the Collection of Max Epstein (Chicago, 1928), ill., n. p.
Rose Valland, “Une Madone de Botticelli,” La Renaissance 11 (1928), p. 354, ill.
Esther Singleton, Old World Masters in New World Collections (New York, 1929), pp. 64–66, ill.
Raimond van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, vol. 12 (The Hague, 1931), p. 46, fig. 12.
Clarence Joseph Bulliet, Art Masterpieces in a Century of Progress Fine Arts Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1933), no. 28, ill, n. p.
Alfred M. Frankfurter, “Art in the Century of Progress,” Fine Arts 20 (1933), pp. 11, ill, 60. 
Carlo Gamba, Botticelli (Milan 1936), p. 94.
Jacques Mesnil, Botticelli (Paris, 1938), p. 225.
The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 48 (1954), p. 77.
Roberto Salvini, Tutta la pittura del Botticelli, vol. 1, (Milan, 1958), pp. 67–68, 74, pl. 128.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 29.
Roberto Salvini, All the Paintings of Botticelli, trans. John Grillenzoni, pt. 2 (New York, 1965), pp. 75–76, 83, pl. 128.
Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (1966), p. 203, fig. 37.
Michael Levy and Gabriele Mandel, The Complete Paintings of Botticelli, Eng. ed. (New York, 1967), p. 86, no. 9, fig. 9.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York, 1970), pp. 30–31, ill.
Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972), pp. 33, 328, 571.
Ronald Lightbrown, Sandro Botticelli, vol. 2 (London, 1978), p. 17, no. A13, ill.
Nicoletta Pons, Botticelli: catalogo completo (Milan, 1989), p. 55, no. 8, ill.
Glad Tidings of Great Joy: Christmas at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1993), p. 93, ill. frontpiece.
Christopher Lloyd, Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1993), pp.41–44, ill.
Larry J. Feinberg, “A Brief History of the Old Masters in the Art Institute of Chicago,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 32 (2006), p. 18, fig. 13.
Cristina Acidini, Botticelli nel suo tempo (Milan, 2009), pp. 92–93, ill.
Andreas Schumacher, ed., Botticelli: Likeness, Myth, Devotion, exh. cat. (Ostfildern, 2009), p. 101, fig. 61.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Old Masters from the Collections of Cyrus H. McCormick and Max Epstein, 1928 (no cat.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, Summer Exhibition: Old Masters Lent by Max Epstein, 1930 (no cat.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1933, no. 108.
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1934, no. 45.
The Art Institute of Chicago, The Christmas Story in Art, 1938–39 (no cat.).
The University of Chicago, The Renaissance Society, Max Epstein Memorial Exhibition, 1955, no. 3.
The Art Institute of Chicago, New Light on Old Masters, Early Italian Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, May 29–July 31, 1993, no cat.
Museo di Palazzo Strozzi, Sandro Botticelli, March 11 – July 11, 2004, no. 26.

Possibly Dr. Paoletti, Florence [according to a note in the curatorial file, recording the remark of a Dr. Richter, presumably Jean Paul, during a visit to the Epstein home in June 1935]. Jules Féral, Paris, 1907–19 [according to Lightbown 1978]; sold by Féral to a Scandinavian collector, 1919 [according to Lightbown 1978]. Arnold van Buuren, Naarden, Holland; sold, Sotheby Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, May 26–27, 1925, lot 20, for 25,500 guilders [according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue in the Getty Research Institute]. Max Epstein (d. 1954), Chicago, from 1925 or 1928 to 1954 [Levey and Mandel 1967 stated that Epstein purchased the work in 1925, but it may not have arrived in the United States until May 1928, corresponding to registrar’s records dated May 15, 1928]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1954; on loan to his widow, Leola Epstein, Chicago, 1955–68.

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