A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

807. MADONNA AND CHILD ENTHRONED.

Carlo Crivelli (Venetian: painted 1468-1493). See 602.

This picture (like 724) is signed by "Sir Charles": it is dated 1491. It bears the painter's sign-manual also in the fruits and the vase of flowers. The giver of the picture (which was dedicated to the Virgin, and which, as recorded in a Latin inscription below, cost no inconsiderable sum) is kneeling, in the habit of a Dominican nun, at the foot of the throne. On the Madonna's left is St. Sebastian, pierced with arrows and tied to a pillar, but with the happy look of "sorrow ended" on his face. On her right is St. Francis. Near his feet are some flowers and a snail—typical of the kindness and humbleness of the saint, of whom it is recorded that "he spoke never to bird nor to cicala, nor even to wolf and beast of prey, but as his brother," and who thus taught the lesson "Never to blend our pleasure, or our pride, With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels" (Wordsworth).