Italian school (XX) - Madonna con bambino - Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Oil painting on canvas depicting the Virgin with the Child in her arms, both turned toward the viewer in an intense exchange of gazes. The Madonna wears a red-orange mantle with broad, sumptuous drapery, edged by a light fur collar and by a golden veil that frames her face; at her feet a deep blue drapery creates a striking chromatic contrast. The Child, nude and partially wrapped in a white cloth, clings tenderly to his mother's neck. The dark, uniform background, typical of the sixteenth- to seventeenth-century painting tradition, concentrates all attention on the two figures, highlighting the richness of the folds and the delicacy of the faces..