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Madonna Litta
mid-1490s · tempera on canvas (transferred from panel) · State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Sizes
image 15.7×20 in on a 16×20 in sheet
What is dpi?
Dots per inch: how many pixels of the museum’s file go into each inch of paper. Our floor is 240 for sheets up to 20 inches, 180 up to 36 inches and 120 beyond, because a larger print is seen from further away. We never offer a sheet below the floor, and the number on each size is the one you receive.
Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 308 gsm cotton rag · pigment inks · printed to order
Printed to order · the whole painting, never cropped · if it arrives damaged, we replace it
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All editionsAbout this painting
The Child feeds at His Mother's breast and turns His eyes out of the frame, toward whoever stands there. Our Lady looks only at Him. Readings of this Madonna lactans, the nursing Virgin, dwell on His clinging, uncomfortable pose and on the goldfinch in His hand, which the National Gallery and the Fitzwilliam read as a sign of His Passion. The Hermitage records that Duke Antonio Litta sold it to Tsar Alexander II in 1865 for 100,000 francs. Its cataloguer Tatiana Kustodieva records no doubt that it is Leonardo's; Marco Carminati reports specialists proposing his pupils. The small red-faced bird keeps still in His hand.
Sources: thehistoryofart.org (Madonna Litta entry); italian-renaissance-art.com; musings-on-art.org · italian-renaissance-art.com; thehistoryofart.org · musings-on-art.org; thehistoryofart.org · Duke Antonio Litta sold the painting to Tsar Alexander II on 12 January 1865 for 100,000 francs · italian-renaissance-art.com, "Madonna Litta" (already on the card's source list; URL added and fetched) · Art Institute of Chicago, collection record, "Virgin and Child" (curatorial entry) · The National Gallery, London, Glossary, "Goldfinches" · The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, "Signs and Symbols: The Goldfinch" · Marco Carminati, "Leonardo, la Madonna Litta e la bottega," Il Sole 24 Ore, 2020 (signed review of the Poldi Pezzoli exhibition, cur. Pietro C. Marani and Andrea Di Lorenzo) · Comune di Milano, official exhibition announcement, "Milan and Leonardo 500": Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Leonardo e la Madonna Litta (2019)