Madonna and Child by Filippino Lippi, housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New Your, comes to life in life-size (81.3 x 59.7 cm) in our living room, using the Artinside Museum app, available on the App Store, for iPhone and iPad. The masterpiece is part of the fourth collection, dedicated to the theme of Religious Art. The painting is displayed in the first room dedicated to representations of the Madonna and Child, from the 13th to the 18th century.

Religious Art in Artinside Museum

For centuries, Bible stories were the main subjects of Western art. Painters rendered the stories on panels or canvas, filtering them through their sensitivity, their beliefs, and the historical-cultural context in which they lived. There are many iconographic subjects inspired by biblical stories from Old and New Testament. The Old Testament contains the first accounts of human life, the origin and history of the people of Israel. The New Testament is focused on life of Jesus Christ. The journey into religious art begins with a selection of masterpieces depicting the Madonna and Child (from the 13th to the 18th century). It continues through five masterpieces illustrating the Annunciation, five artworks depicting the Adoration of the Magi and the Shepherds, and five paintings showing some biblical stories. The journey ends with five masterpieces dedicated to the iconography of the Saints.

Get up close to “Madonna and Child” by Filippino Luppi, in Augmented Reality, using Artinside Museum

‘La Madonna con Bambino’ di Filippino Lippi

In this painting the gold background disappears and the Madonna and Child are depicted in a Florentine palace. The portico has the coat of arms of the rich Florentine banker Filippo Strozzi (three crescents). The Virgin Mary holds the child in her arms. The baby Jesus is turning the pages of a book placed on a red velvet cushion. On a wooden table there is also a pomegranate, which is the symbol of the Resurrection. In the background you can see an urban landscape, where two peasants appear, a black woman doing housework, two African slaves fishing. By depicting a religious subject, Filippino Lippi also added the social theme of the emerging black slave trade in Florence.

Filippino Lippi

(Prato 1457- Florence 1504)

The son of Fra Filippo Lippi and the nun Lucrezia Buti, Filippino Lippi was just a boy when his father died in Spoleto. He trained first under his father, and then under Botticelli in Florence. Filippino Lippi completed Masaccio’s frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. He painted artworks for powerful patrons. He decorated the Strozzi family chapel in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and received important commissions in Rome, Volterra, Prato and Pavia.