Madonna and Child

Guariento was a leading painter in Padua and Venice in the third quarter of the fourteenth century and this is among his most charming works. The composition, with the Madonna displaying her swaddled child to the viewer, repeats an earlier, much venerated image in Padua, and there can be little doubt that this added to the picture’s devotional impact. The gold background was renewed in the fifteenth century and it was probably then that the Latin inscription was added: "Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the name of his glorious Virgin Mother."