To those who may be receiving one of these post-notifications for the first time: This is not a blog; it’s actually part of a book, and will make little sense to you without knowledge of what has come before—which you can easily obtain, along with a goodly amount of satirical theatre as matters progress, by simply entering ttgftyri.org into your web browser, opening the menu, and starting at page one. J.J.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Chiesa della Misericordia, Florence

Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Honolulu Museum of Art

Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Louvre, Paris

St Martin Cathedral, Lucca, Italy
Okay, time to look at some numbers.
- So far, we’ve encountered one thousand fifty-seven paintings, all by Italians, that fit our criteria.
- These paintings, in which more than two hundred artists were commissioned by various Catholic institutions and devout individuals—ranging from wealthy laymen to Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals, and of course the Pope himself—to come up with a depiction of the Madonna in one situation or another, were executed over a period of some four hundred years, beginning with the rise of the Renaissance around 1250 and for reasons that will soon become apparent, starting to fade out around 1650, or well into the Baroque period.
- That averages out to about fifty artists per century; and while the first ones often varied their color scheme for the Virgin’s garments from one painting to another, using the one at issue here only some of the time, by Botticelli’s day (1445-1510) they rarely used any other; indeed by then, blue-over-red had become her color-motif—to the extent that (1) it was rarely used for anyone else, save the mature Christ himself, in a painting, and (2) she just didn’t ‘look right’ without it. And it would remain that way for the next two hundred years.
- Botticelli alone did more than fifty such paintings; and Raphael, whose life was cut short by illness, almost as many. In fact, most of the artists of that span produced at least fifteen or twenty; while here we must add that of the last hundred fifty-seven painters mentioned—from whose ouvre we dared show but one painting each, lest we burden ourselves with many more examples of this color convention than was really necessary—about a third had a dozen or more such paintings to offer; which means that our one thousand fifty-seven examples could easily have been increased by a minimum of six hundred.
So now let’s check out the rest of Catholic Europe, beginning with neighboring France; while here again, due to the sheer number of painters that we’re going to be mentioning in the several countries that we’ll be visiting, we must confine ourselves to one example per artist.
My comprehensive list of painters by nationality (see Wikipedia at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_painters_by_nationality) indicates that in neighboring France, there weren’t any painters to speak of until the seventeenth century, when some talented individuals—usually following an apprenticeship in the studio of some Italian master—discovered that they could make a good living by simply working on the vanity of the king, his family, courtiers, and in fact every nobleman and noblewoman of any means into whose good graces they might eventually make their way, subsequently telling them how powerful and beautiful they were and offering to paint their portrait.
However, during that century, at least twenty French painters also received some commissions from the Church, resulting in such paintings as the ones shown below.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Museum of Fine Arts, Rennes


Private Collection



National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.


National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Notre-Dame-de-Bercy church, Paris



And then further west, in Spain . . .

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Museo de Zaragoza


Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona

Museo del Prado, Madrid



Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, Acqui Terme

Museu de Belles Arts, València


Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City



National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Musée d’art et d’histoire, Narbonne

Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City


Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg


Museo de Bellas Artes, Córdoba

Iglesia de San Jaime Apóstol, Algemesí


Museo del Prado, Madrid

Museo del Prado, Madrid
1051: Artsy https://www.artsy.net/artwork/giorgio-vasari-holy-family-with-saint-francis-in-a-landscape
1052: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_Vignali
1053: Pinacote Cabrera https://pinacotecabrera.org/en/collezione-online/opere/assumption-of-the-virgin-vivarini/
1054: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolomeo_Vivarini
1055: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardo_Zenale
1056: Louvre http://mini-site.louvre.fr/mantegna/acc/xmlen/section_1_6.html
1057: Letterura Artistica http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.com/2016/07/federico-zuccari5.html
1058: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%27_Annonciation_de_1644,_Philippe_de_Champaigne..jpg
1059: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newborn_Child
1060: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.ru/amp/pin/536772849320350818/
1061: Kimbell Art https://www.kimbellart.org/exhibition/brothers-le-nain
1062: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/pin/708965166317955453/?nic_v1=1bs0BY0pojV74eyZvtqqIlvNdNsu85boV3UZOWb%2BCBFj%2FE2ATQSBu%2BY%2BeCSvTg66yP
1063: Painting Star https://www.paintingstar.com/item-mystic-marriage-of-st-catherine-s158864.html
1064: Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Holy-Family-on-the-Steps
1065: Artnet http://www.artnet.com/artists/jacques-stella/the-madonna-and-child-_eGU-sHcE3AZ2OYbzULYcw2
1066: NGA https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.206070.html
1067: Wikipedia https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:L%27annonciation_de_Daniel_Hall%C3%A9.jpg
1068: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/pin/355925176792023375/?nic_v1=1bsja2YG0CgNvXbc5Tz1OtOoSjnAS%2FqWrIYAlOYCAGAf32S9u8%2FtOp6nKETWe%2Bzfch
1069: Muzeo https://en.muzeo.com/art-print/ladoration-des-mages/claude-guy-halle
1070: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/pin/478155685415333126/?nic_v1=1bzAMjdf%2BE%2FW0RZSc53fC4TkXNMYCFzfPs2c%2B7VXHc38Bo5DEi9EhRL9iRTo5prU%2BS
1071: Museu Nacional https://www.museunacional.cat/en/colleccio/nativity/guerau-gener/114739-000
1072: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/385128205629351913/?nic_v1=1b8lEONkH4FjTPmKVa%2B2pKGs5DdxBwn0Vow8jF09ZoUErLF6rv0lwG0eiphux2Lais
1073: Cosa de Historia y Art https://cosasdehistoriayarte.blogspot.com/2018/02/jaume-baco-escriva-jacomart.html
1074: CC Search https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/photos/34a317dd-3d3c-426a-8185-5d7e7ab75bef
1075: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llu%C3%ADs_Dalmau
1076: Wikipedia https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retablo_de_la_Epifan%C3%ADa_(Juan_Rexach)
1077: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Gallego
1078: Robert Simon https://www.robertsimon.com/osuno
1079: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/pin/170362798387564283/?nic_v1=1bvepBFMQamfp3l7iW49VsrU6k%2FI5ee%2BWia3MJnSb7xTMPHEtoAWvxGmIlxlKglSVr
1080: Wikipedia https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_Bermejo
1081: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_da_San_Leocadio
1082: Artnet http://www.artnet.com/artists/pedro-romana/vierge-%C3%A0-lenfant-rehauts-dor-gIo3P_hiLS7VJT20DWT3ig2
1083: WGA https://www.wga.hu/html_m/o/osona/francisc/adormagi.html
1084: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alonso_L%C3%B3pez_de_Herrera_-The_Assumption_of_the_Virgin-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
1085: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Juan_de_borgo%C3%B1a-el_sue%C3%B1o_de_san_jose-cuenca.jpg
1086: Museo del Prado https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-visitation/b12ebd3c-2220-48ac-a7a8-8953a4091791
1087: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Y%C3%A1%C3%B1ez_de_la_Almedina
1088: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/388294799092552264/?amp_client_id=CLIENT_ID%28_%29&mweb_unauth_id=&from_amp_pin_page=true
1089: The Hermitage https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/32938/
1090: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Sainte_Famille,_Gregorio_Baus%C3%A1,_Mus%C3%A9e_Goya.jpg
1091: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alonso_L%C3%B3pez_de_Herrera_-The_Assumption_of_the_Virgin-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
1092: Artnet http://www.artnet.com/artists/juan-del-castillo/
1093: Useum https://useum.org/artwork/Holy-Family-Luis-Tristan-1613
1094: Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/pin/770608186213991896/?nic_v1=1bnZV%2B5e4IICEs%2BZtkcMqn02hu5EZEszN3Tma5kqGuE2LL2ICW1dCv37a6uxdlTGRD
1095: Useum https://useum.org/artwork/Untitled-Francisco-Pacheco-1
1096: Google A&C https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/m0wzv6qm
1097: Tumblr https://spanishbaroqueart.tumblr.com/page/100
1098: Arte Historia https://www.artehistoria.com/sites/default/files/imagenobra/RIC22467.jpg
1099: Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_the_Virgin_(Vel%C3%A1zquez)
1100: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francisco_de_Zurbar%C3%A1n_-The_Immaculate_Conception-_WGA26069.jpg