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Piero della Francesca
Madonna di Senigallia
c. 1474
Oil on panel
67 cm × 53.5 cm (26 in × 21.1 in)
Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino
The Madonna di Senigallia is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, finished around 1474. It is housed in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, in the Ducal Palace of Urbino.
The painting was originally in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie extra moenia of Senigallia (Marche), whence the current name.
The 1950s restoration showed the high quality of Piero della Francesca's treatment of light, as well as the influence of Flemish masters on it in details such as the basket with linen gauze, the coral and the fabric covering the Madonna's head. The light, which realistically enters from the window on the left, is a symbol of the Virgin's conception. The linen in the basket is instead an allusion to her purity, while the case for hosts in the shelf and the coral hanging from Jesus' necklace both hint to the Eucharist sacrifice. The staring, thoughtful immobility of all the characters would be also an allusion to the latter.
References
* Zuggi, Stefano (1991). Piero della Francesca. Milan.
From Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
