Conservation completed in 1997 with funding from Alexis Gregory.

Originally located in the church of Santa Lucia, which was torn down in 1861 to build Venice’s railroad station, this painting was housed in the convent of the Canossian nuns of the church of Sant’Alvise until 1996; it is currently on long-term loan to the Accademia Galleries.

The Virgin is elegantly clothed in a rose-colored dress and a deep blue cloak embroidered with gold, which is fastened at her chest with a precious jeweled brooch. She sits upon a monumental throne covered with a scarlet cloth of honor that is held by two angels. The Christ Child sits in his mother’s lap, wearing an elaborate golden garment; he offers her a red rose, which symbolizes his future suffering and sacrifice. All are silhouetted against a Byzantine-style gold background.

Paolo Veneziano (or “da Venezia”) is the first named painter to emerge from medieval anonymity in Venice. Paolo, like other Venetian painters of the fourteenth century, seems to have disregarded the boldly posed volumetric figures of Giotto in nearby Padua, preferring instead a style of great delicacy, with an insistence on elegantly meandering contours and decorative surface patterns.

The painting was restored by conservator Paola Borghese, with the guidance of project director Giovanna Nepi Scirè of the Superintendency of Fine Arts of Venice.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Paolo Veneziano (c. 1300 – c. 1362)
Madonna and Child Enthroned
c. 1340-1347, tempera and gilding on wood panel
103 x 73 cm

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