Madonna and Child

Earthly and divine

Madonna and Child, Barbara Longhi

Tansy Curtin

For many decades considered to be a painting by a Flemish artist, this intimate Madonna and Child  has in recent years been identified as an important work by the Italian painter Barbara Longhi. AGSA’s international collection includes several depictions of the Madonna and Child, spanning art history from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This new acquisition is, however, the first version of the subject to be painted by a woman and it seems likely that Longhi’s commissions were primarily completed for female patrons, offering a unique female gaze on Italian devotional images of the late sixteenth century – a portrait of a woman, by a woman for a woman’s contemplation.

Barbara Longhi was born in Ravenna, Italy, in 1552, living her entire life in the city. Receiving her artistic training from her father Luca Longhi, she was considered to be a precocious talent. In 1568, when Longhi was only sixteen years old, the renowned artist–writer Giorgio Vasari, when writing of Luca Longhi, noted: ‘nor should I fail to mention a young daughter of his, still a young maiden, by the name of Barbera [sic], who draws very well, and who has begun to paint with considerable grace and style’.1 Longhi painted very few larger canvases during her career and today her extant oeuvre includes primarily devotional works for domestic use, with these focusing on the Madonna – reading to, holding and nursing the Christ Child. Little is known of Longhi’s life, and the extent of her artistic output remains unknown, since her works are mostly unsigned and have traditionally been misattributed to her father and other artists of the period. Fewer than twenty works have been confirmed as by her and, of these, more than half portray the Madonna and Child.

The nursing Madonna is one of Longhi’s favoured subjects and three versions of this theme have been identified in the artist’s small oeuvre. The iconography of the nursing mother or Virgo Lactans became popular in Italy from the fourteenth century and later in northern Europe, leading to the work being incorrectly considered of Flemish origin. The small scale and humble domesticity of the setting of this portrait allow the viewer a special intimacy with the subject, simultaneously offering an experience that is sacred and commonplace. The inclusion of the landscape with figures in the background further highlights the Virgin Mary’s role in connecting humanity with the Divine: she is enshrined in an ornate canopy decorated with gold thread, while out the window everyday farmers go about their business in the fields.

Tansy is Curator of International Art pre-1980 at AGSA.

This text was taken from AGSA Magazine 49