UNKNOWN MASTER, Italian
(active around 1360 in Venice)

The Virgin of Humility with Angels and Donor

c. 1360
Tempera on panel, 69 x 57 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

The Virgin, depicted breast-feeding the Infant Christ, bears an inscription to the right other halo with the word Humility - she is the Madonna of Humility who protects the humble under her cloak. This anonymous master of the Venetian school, probably working in the circle of Paolo Veneziano, paints in a transitional style, whereby the lingering influence of Byzantine art can be seen in the decorative treatment of the draperies and the compositional structure of the scene, in which the gold ground prohibits any sense of spatial depth. The faces and the visible areas of flesh are nevertheless painted with a certain solidity and realism which gives the figures a more human feel.