Virgin and Child by Benedetto da Maiano - Lyon France

Benedetto da Maiano’s Virgin and Child reveals a deep correspondence with the work of Donatello, whose influence shaped much of the artistic language of fifteenth-century Florence. Donatello had transformed religious sculpture by infusing sacred subjects with human warmth and emotional truth, and Benedetto continues this tradition, softening and refining it for a later generation. Like Donatello’s Madonna of the Clouds or Pazzi Madonna, Benedetto’s relief expresses an intimate bond between mother and child. The Virgin’s face is serene and inward-looking, her expression filled with quiet tenderness, while the infant Christ presses close to her cheek in a gesture of trust and affection. This human closeness—the transformation of divine love into a mother’s embrace—echoes Donatello’s reimagining of sacred figures as deeply human beings, capable of emotion and vulnerability.