RAFFAELLO Sanzio
(b. 1483, Urbino, d. 1520, Roma)

Madonna della Seggiola (framed)

1514
Oil on wood, diameter 71 cm
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

The bodies of the Virgin, Christ, and the boy Baptist fill the whole picture. The tender, natural looking embrace of the Mother and Child, and the harmonious grouping of the figures in the round, have made this one of Raphael's most popular Madonnas. The isolated chair leg is reminiscent of papal furniture, which has led to the assumption that Leo X himself commissioned the painting.