Madonna and Child

Pietro Lombardo (or Pietro di Martino da Carona)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This relief was intended as a devotional image for a private chapel, shrine, or well-to-do home. Mary protectively embraces the Christ Child whose slumber symbolically foreshadows his death, as does the leafy fruit in his hand that resembles the apple held by Adam nearby. The sharp contours of the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ are defined by undercutting, and crisp folds of drapery envelop mother and son, their intimacy emphasized by the delicate linearity with which they are carved. The band of stylized vegetation below is inspired by ancient decorative motfis. [Peter J. Bell, 2015]

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art