Mary with Child and Singing Angels Botticelli Poster

Mary with Child and Singing Angels by Sandro Botticelli, 1477, is a tempera painting on wood panel depicting the Virgin Mary with Christ Child in her lap surrounded by a choir of singing angels, against a background of blue sky and large white flowers. Above them a crown descends from heaven. The painting is a tondo, a circular shape sometimes used in religious icon paintings of the Renaissance. Botticelli’s clear, classical modelling of form and attention to details of costume and religious iconography layer his composition with multiple levels of meaning, both religious and artistic. Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was a Florentine painter of the of the early Italian Renaissance who apprenticed under the master Filippo Lippi. With strong Gothic influences, the mature work of Botticelli reflected a study of antique classical sculpture and was noted for its linear grace and rhythm, flattened relief-like forms with strong contours, and subtle colouring. The complexity of meanings in Botticelli’s compositions, from sources drawn from classical antiquity, mythology and philosophy, enthraled scholars for centuries.