During the 16th century the Virgin holding her Child was regularly represented against an intense sunlight, standing or sitting on a moon crescent, both in sculpture and in painting. This iconography is based on Apocalypse 12:1, where Saint John describes the Virgin in his vision as “a woman clothed in the sun, and the moon under her feet”.

 

What makes our painting and our two similar comparative works so unique in Western art is the fact that the viewer is looking at the back of the Virgin, while both figures are looking over their shoulders at us.

 

In several areas of our painting one may see the underdrawing, as the pictural layer has, with age, become thinner.