Description
The Virgin and Child Enthroned (also known as the Thyssen Madonna) is a small oil painting on oak panel dated c. 1433, generally attributed to the Early Netherlands artist Rogier van der Weyden.
It is closely related to his Madonna Standing, completed during the same period. The panel is filled with Christian iconography, including depictions of prophets, the Annunciation, the infancy and resurrection of Christ, and the Coronation of Mary. It is generally accepted as van der Weyden's oldest extant work, one of three works attributed to him of the Virgin and Child enclosed in a niche in an outer wall of a Gothic church. The panel is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
The panel appears to be the left wing of a dismantled diptych, perhaps with the Saint George and the Dragon panel now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC As an early van der Weyden, he takes influence from Robert Campin.
Along with Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden was one of the greatest figures in fifteenth-century art. Among his notable contributions to Flemish painting of his time are his exceptional technique and the wonderful expressiveness of his figures that convey emotions such as suffering and sadness. This small and delicate panel represents one of the new motifs developed by Flemish painters: that of the Virgin in a church. In such works the Virgin is shown sitting with the Child Jesus in front of what could be the portico of a church or a Gothic chapel.
The architectural decoration contains references to the Old Testament in the figures of the prophets on the arch jambs and King David, as well as the New Testament, with scenes in which the Virgin is the main figure such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity , the Adoration of the Child Jesus and the Adoration of the Magi. In general, the present composition emphasizes the Virgin's role as mother by showing her nursing the Child Jesus in her arms, while the crown refers to her as Queen of Heaven and the ring on one of her fingers to her role as God's Wife. . Christ.