Orleans Madonna by Raphael, 1506. Musee Conde, Chantilly, France. Photo via the-athenaeum.org.
Christmas draws near, yet I haven’t featured a religious painting in at least a week. The Madonna and Child are, of course, at the very heart of Christmas, and no one painted them more beautifully that Italian Renaissance artist (1483-1520). There are so many Raphael Madonnas to choose from, but I thought this one was particularly pretty. His most famous, of course, is La Belle Jardiniere, now at the Louvre museum in Paris. People walk past it without noticing it on their way to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but I think the Raphael is a much more enjoyable painting.
Want to Enjoy Art More? Take a course or get a guide.
Alexandra Kiely, aka A Scholarly Skater, is an art historian based in the northeastern United States. She loves wandering down the dark and dusty corners of art history and wholeheartedly believes in visual art's ability to enrich every person's life.
Her favorite periods of art history are 19th-century American painting and medieval European art and architecture. When she not looking at, reading about, writing about, or teaching art, she's probably ice dancing or reading.
View all posts by Alexandra Kiely (A Scholarly Skater)
A Scholarly Skater 
_-_WGA18646.jpg){kind=link}