Madonna and Child

Caravaggio creates a hierarchy with the Madonna and Child at its peak. Jesus, standing on his mother’s lap, looks out at us with wide, innocent eyes. He is naked and unusually large for a child of this age, with one hand around his mother’s shoulders and the other pinching his chubby belly.

We know from scientific examination that the original pair looked somewhat different – an original, significantly smaller Christ child is now hidden beneath the milky white of Jesus’ tummy. Caravaggio painted him seated like his mother. In the corrected version Caravaggio elevates the position of Mary and Jesus, making their role more dominant. The lack of preliminary sketches suggests that the artist possibly developed the work on the canvas itself.