Madonna and Child

The quiet mood of this picture, in which Mary nurses her infant son, is appropriate for prayer in a domestic setting. As the Christ Child suddenly turns to acknowledge the viewer, drops of milk escape. The emphasis on the tenderness between mother and child suggests that this was made for a female audience. We can be sure, however, that it was created by a woman artist. Barbara Longhi, a specialist in small devotional works, was one of the few female painters mentioned in the 1568 edition of Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, a landmark set of biographies of artists