Madonna and Child with Two Angels

This lesser known is attributed to Sandro Botticelli by its owners, The Metropolitan Museum of Art which is based in the US. It features a composition which is entirely in keeping with the earlier part of the artist's career.

This painting was produced in an oval shape, which is normally done in order to allow a painting to fit within an existing installation. The Madonna sits on the left hand side, with the child perched on her knee. Two angels are placed close by. In the distance we find a spawling landscape scene with rocky hills and winding paths. They lead up to a bright and calming sky which allows the foreground figures to be draped in light within a rare outdoor scene. During the Early Renaissance one would rarely see a landscape painting, but such content would regularly feature as a supporting element to another genre, as shown here. There are many aspects of this work to support the attribution to Botticelli, but clearly some question marks remain as otherwise it would not have been described by its owners as "Attributed to Botticelli", as opposed to being firmer in their description.

The Met list this piece as being around one metre in height, and around 71cm in width. It was produced as tempera on wood, presumably a single panel which was entirely consistent with how most artists worked in Italy at that time. It is listed as having been brought to the institution courtesy of the H. O. Havemeyer Collection, in 1929, which is clearly relatively recent. Botticelli's career was somewhat forgotten for a number of centuries until around the 19th century meaning that some of his lesser known pieces do not have a history of ownership that dates back to around the period in which the artist was active. There are some suggestions that Madonna and Child with Two Angels was actually originally found within the Castelfranco di Sopra which is near the artist's native Florence. It is placed there in the late 18th century which at least moves us closer to understanding its lifecycle since it was completed.

The artist re-visited the topic of the Madonna and Child many times, with most appearing in the earliest parts of his career. Some of the most famous examples of this would appear within the likes of Madonna and Child, Madonna of the Magnificat and Madonna della Loggia. This was popular content for patrons at this time and so it helped Botticelli to build up his reputation before later he would then be able to spread into other genres and challenge himself a little more. Another interesting aspect of some of his portraits would be the angles that he used, some of which had been reserved only for religious icons where as Botticelli would start to make use of them for local Florentine models which would then encourage others to do likewise.