GIOVANNI DI PAOLO
(b. ca. 1399, Siena, d. 1482, Siena)

Madonna of Humility (Virgin and Child)

c. 1442
Tempera on wood, 56 x 43 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In this Madonna of Humility Mary sits on a cushion in a flowered clearing surrounded by an orange grove. In the background a landscape, whose orthogonals refuse to converge, stretches off into the distance, its rippling waters and checkered fields alternating at intervals with soft hills.