Adoration of the This was a favor ite subject with the Catacomb dwellers and we find over 20 depictions of the scene in these subterranean galleries. Mary is seated on a throne and the Magi in their tunics and Phrygian caps bring gifts of dishes and bas kets. Their number runs from three to six. The early method of treatment makes the Babe rest in the mother's arms, but in the Santa Maria Maggiore (Rome) mosaic the Child is seated on a pedestal with hand upraised in benediction. Usually we find Him in His mother's lap. The emanating glory of the Babe frequently is the source of light and the bene diction act is frequently His pose. An Adora tion of the Magi mosaic (about 6th century) is in the chapel of San Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna, in which the Magi lead a procession of female martyrs bringing their crowns as votive offerings to the Madonna. Giotto's painting in Padua places the scene in a stable while Fra Angelico (National Gallery, Lon don) chooses the entrance of a cave as the scene of the devotions. In Filippo Lippi's (Adoration of the Kings' in the Uffizi, Florence, Mary is located in a wide landscape in which figure a host of persons surrounding hei. Other noted Adorations are by Baldassare Peruzzi (London National Gallery), Pintu ricchio, Mehling (Bruges), Rogier van Wey den (Munich), Rembrandt ; Rubens painted 15. of which one is in Madrid, another in the pos session of the Duke of Westminster.
Flight into In pictures brought under this title Mary is sometimes seen seated on an ass with Joseph walking beside; the ox which tradition says accompanied them rarely appears in the paintings. Sometimes an angel leads the ass. Well-known depictions of this scene are by Giotto (Padua), Fra Angelico (Florence), Pinturicchio, Memling (Munich).
This phase of the Madonna series is more popular with artists of the past than the It depicts the Holy Family after the tedious journey through the desert resting in a fertile country surrounded by fruit trees, Mary bathing the Child, etc. It was greatl• favored by German and Flemish masters (Albrecht Altdorfer's in Berlin, Lucas Cranach, Martin Schongauer's in Vienna, etc.).
Pastoral From the 15th cen tury a new style of treatment of the Madonna theme arrives. It is the placing of the Virgin in a landscape surrounding. There are but few, such as Raphael's earliest Madonnas. Three most noted are La Belle Jardinière (Beautiful Gardener) in the Louvre; Madonna in the Meadow (Madonna in Griinen) in Belvedere Gallery, Vienna; and the Cardellino Madonna (Madonna of the Goldfinch) in the Uffizi, Florence. All three among the most prized paintings in the world and too popularly multi plied to need description. Raphael's later work, the Casa Alba Madonna, is less well known with its turbaned Roman patrician depiction of the Virgin. Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks gives the Holy Virgin, in the fore ground of a grotto, grouped with the Child and the infant John. Luini painted a pastoral Ma donna (in the Brera, Milan), but very noted is Correggio's (La Zingarella) (Gipsy) or (Ma donna del Corniglio) (Naples) which is posed in a lovely .landscape as is also his kneeling Madonna in the Uffizi, both of which always call forth admiration. Palma Vecchio's Conversaziones' in Naples, Dresden, Munich and Vienna are public favorites. In the Pas toral class' of Madonnas must be included the three °enclosed garden' examples by Francia (Munich), Filippino Lippi (Florence) and by Schongauer, in which the Virgin and Child are surrounded by a hedge of roses with a landscape in the rear perspective.
Domestic This method of depic tion of the biblical scene was vogue among painters of the middle 15th century. They consisted of the Holy Virgin and Child asso ciated with Saint Joseph, Saint Elisabeth and her son, and frequently other attendants. A number depict Saint John Baptist child playing with the Holy Infant; Saint Ann, mother of the Holy Virgin, appears in some; da Vinci even depicts (in a cartoon) Our Lady seated on Saint Ann's knees. Girolamo dai Libri (London National Gallery) painted such a group, and Perugino has a work in which Saint Ann rests her hand on the Virgin's shoulders while boys and women relatives are grouped about.Very popular are the groups that include the infant Saint John Baptist play ing with the Child (as Raphael's in National Gallery, London). Both Botticelli and da Vinci created pictures of Saint ,lohn adoring the Infant. In .the same inspiration is Luini's 'Madonna dell' Agnello) at Lugano. Another popular group subject adopted in pictures by Titian, Perugino, Correggio, Parmigiano, Bor gognone, Memling, etc., is the 'Marnage of Saint Catherine,' in which the Child is placing a ring on the finger of the saint. Good modern representations of such groups are by P. A. J. Dagnan-Bouveret in the New Pinakothek, Mu nich, in which the holy mother, depicted as a peasant, is seated on a bench in the carpenter's shop and the Child at her breast, under her mantle, illuminates and pierces with rays of glory the coarse textile. But, though numer ous, both French and German modern paintings of the Madonna lack the devotion or even in spirational features which give such glory and beauty of conception to the early Italian mas ters and those of the Renaissance.
Madonnas in Domestic These include the 'Holy series. The worldly environment in depiction of this mystic religious subject has found few exponents, and those confined largely to northern artists. To the German and Dutch the maternal dignity of the Hisusfrau appeals so strongly as to call from their limners hands sacred Madonnas in everyday household surroundings. Of such we have pictures by Quintin Matsys (Munich) with its Flemish sleeping apartment, having the Virgin and Child as occupants; the 15th century German artist Schongauer (Belvedere Gallery, Vienna) gives Joseph feeding the cat tle from hay in his arms looking with fondness in the doorway at the Virgin holding a bunch of grapes while the Child nestles in her lap. But in Italy, Giulio Romano in his Madonna della Catina (Dresden) portrays the Divine Babe in a basin (catina), ready for the bath, while the infant Saint John pours water from a ewer. The Madonna dell' Impannata (of the papered window), formerly considered as Raphael's and later ascribed to Romano, pic tures Elisabeth, Mary Magdalen and the child Saint John beautifully grouped with the Virgin and Child. The picture of the French artist Mignard (Louvre) called 'La Vierge si la Grappe' is well known. Salembini's Holy Family (Pitti Palace) depicts the gambols of the Child Jesus and Saint John with puppies. Rembrandt s two 'Ménage du Menuisier' (car penter's home), in the Louvre and Petrograd, picture a combined living and workroom with Joseph at his bench and Mother and Child as central subjects; his painting in the Munich Gallery also brings Saint Joseph as carpenter into the scene.