Paolo Uccello (Paolo di Dono)
Italian painter, 1397-1475
Madonna and Child with Saint Francis
About 1440-50
Tempera and gold on panel
24 x 18 1/2 inches (61 x 47 centimeters)
Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1960.
1960.018.000 KB

The fifteenth-century Florentine painter, Paolo Uccello, understood and embraced contemporary ideas about depicting space and depth, such as linear perspective and foreshortening, but he did not abandon older ways of working. In this painting he chose an old-fashioned, flattened style. The kneeling figure of Saint Francis of Assisi can be identified by his monk's habit and by the stigmata, the wounds on his hands, feet, and side that Christ received on the cross.