CORREGGIO
(b. ca. 1490, Correggio, d. 1534, Correggio)

Virgin and Child with an Angel (Madonna del Latte)

1522-25
Oil on wood, 69 x 57 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

This painting was extraordinarily popular for several centuries, and many versions, engravings and copies of it have survived. However, the quality of the Budapest picture, especially the tender modelling and expressive beauty of faces and hands, have led scholars to believe that this must be the original painting so greatly treasured in seventeenth-century Rome, and reproduced in a contemporary engraving. The landscape background seen in the engraving is hardly visible in the painting, which has darkened considerably with age.