Madonna and Child (Haller Madonna)

The Haller Madonna is an oil painting by Albrecht Dürer, dating to around 1498. It is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The coat of arms in the left lower corner allowed to identify the commission of the work from the old house of Haller von Hallerstein in Nuremberg. The other coat of arms in the right corner has not been identified. In the mid-20th century the work was acquired was Samuel Kress, which later donated it to the American museum of Washington. The scheme of the painting, with the child standing on a cushion on the background with a red background and window opening to a landscape, is similar to that Giovanni Bellini’s works, which Dürer had seen in his first sojourn in Venice (1494-1495). When the painting was sold on the antiques market, it was attributed to Bellini; it was later assigned to the German painter due to the style of the landscape and the posture of the child, typical of northern European painting. The child holds a fruit, a symbol of the Original Sin; the red padding of the cushion, as well as the tassels, perhaps symbolize the blood of the Jesus’ Passion. The reverse of the painting is also painted, showing a Biblical scene of Lot’s flight from Sodom, with a landscape including a firing town in the background. Since the two scenes are unrelated, it has been supposed that the panel was originally part of a diptych showing also the donor, with Lot and his children in the left panel.