1437, Filippo Lippi, The Tarquinia Madonna -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label: As in his later altarpiece depicting the Annunciation, so here too the young Filippo Lippi uses his mastery of perspective to create novel sensory effects and surprising contrasts. In the centre of a sober, almost bare domestic environment giving onto the sunny exterior of a city street in the background, the Virgin sits with her son on a throne of unusual construction fashioned from even more unusual materials. This helps to transfigure the ordinary setting into a metaphorical space. Even the design of the throne echoes the rounded shape of the precious frame and, in the background, of the window with its shutters wide open against the light. Thus the altarpiece becomes a vindication and a visual hymn to the Virgin in her role as lanua Coeli, the gate of heaven, and Sedes Sapientiae, the throne of Divine Wisdom.
1437, Filippo Lippi, The Tarquinia Madonna -- Palazzo Barberini (Rome)
From the museum label: As in his later altarpiece depicting the Annunciation, so here too the young Filippo Lippi uses his mastery of perspective to create novel sensory effects and surprising contrasts. In the centre of a sober, almost bare domestic environment giving onto the sunny exterior of a city street in the background, the Virgin sits with her son on a throne of unusual construction fashioned from even more unusual materials. This helps to transfigure the ordinary setting into a metaphorical space. Even the design of the throne echoes the rounded shape of the precious frame and, in the background, of the window with its shutters wide open against the light. Thus the altarpiece becomes a vindication and a visual hymn to the Virgin in her role as lanua Coeli, the gate of heaven, and Sedes Sapientiae, the throne of Divine Wisdom.