Giotto di Bondone: Madonna and Child (c. 1310–1315)
Tempera on poplar panel, 85.4 × 61.8 cm
Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Painted in the same years as the Scrovegni Chapel frescoes, this is the moment when Western painting broke with Byzantine convention: figures began to occupy space, faces began to hold emotion. The work passed through the collection of New York banker Henry Goldman before entering the Samuel H. Kress Collection — a trajectory that traces how Renaissance devotional painting migrated from Florentine altars to American museums.
The rose in Mary's hand is not decoration. It is a theological argument: she is identified with the Church as the bride of Christ. The Christ Child's gesture simultaneously signals divine mission and human attachment. This is not the most famous Giotto — it is the one that rewards looking.
This work is also available on fine porcelain — a slimmer, lighter vessel in a different material register. Both dishwasher safe and microwave safe, printed locally in the USA, UK or Germany — not shipped from overseas.
Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.
