To celebrate the Christmas season, for the first time in Spain the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson is showing Artemisia Gentileschi’s Virgin nursing the Child, a work recently acquired by the Foundation on the international market.

This delicate and moving composition of the Virgin and Child is an early piece that the artist painted in Rome when still a teenager training in the workshop of her father Orazio (1563–1639). Indeed, he also addressed this theme around the same time. The iconography depicted was very popular in Catholic spirituality, especially from the late Middle Ages onwards: the Virgo lactans or the Virgin breastfeeding, a subject eventually discouraged by the Council of Trent (1545–63) for reasons of decorum. For although the nursing Child symbolised the solace and protection Mary provided to all believers, it also required showing her breast. In this composition the Virgin’s right breast is covered with a cloth and her hand is modestly placed around the one she is offering the infant. She is sitting on a nursing chair or sedia da balia, whose low seat forces her to bend her legs to support the Child on her lap. This arrangement, together with the pronounced folds of the clothing and their contrasting lighting, lends the figure – designed to be viewed from below, di sotto in sù – a monumental appearance. 

Given its size and subject matter, this composition, which must have been an excellent showcase for the artistic skills of the painter, one of the most important figures of her time, enjoyed considerable success. This is borne out by the fact that she painted at least three later versions following her departure for Florence shortly after marrying in 1612. The initial model was this one in the Fundación María Cristina Masaveu Peterson, and Artemisia may have taken it with her when she moved to the Tuscan capital.