Madonna and Child with Angels 1450 - 1475

This “Madonna and Child with Angels” was made in Florence by Antonio Rossellino, most likely sometime in the mid-15th century, from a single block of marble. Rossellino was one of a number of sculptors in Florence at this time specializing in the carving of marble reliefs. The whiteness of the marble would originally have been much more striking. Note how Rossellino has carefully rendered the soft flesh of the Madonna and Christ Child, against the crisp folds of drapery. He used a range of chisels and rasps to achieve these effects. The surfaces were then painted and gilded, adding a sense of luxury. Rossellino’s workshop would have been a busy place, a site of intense labor that allowed the production of refined objects like this one. Marble sculpture was a costly proposition – the material was expensive and the workmanship highly skilled. Objects like this remind us that the Renaissance was not only a time of great artistic achievement, but also of enormous social division.