Madonna

an Italian word signifying my lady or madam. The Madonna and Child--Mary and the Christ Child--is the most celebrated subject in art. The painters of different nationalities and schools have vied with each other in depicting the Mother and Child. Strangly enough, the Hebrew woman and child are entirely wanting. Each artist seems to have aimed to produce the ideal mother and the ideal child of his own nationality. Italian, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, and Russian madonnas fill the museums of painting, but the dark Hebrew beauty and her black-eyed child are conspicuously wanting. The Century Dictionary names no less than forty-three madonnas worthy of mention, including masterpieces by Raphael, Murillo, Titian, Durer, Holbein, and Leonardo da Vinci. Objects shown in the various paintings have given rise to special names, as Madonna of the Rabbit, the Madonna of the Chair, the Madonna of Pity, the Madonna of the Thistle Finch, the Madonna of the Canopy, the Madonna of the Rosary, the Madonna of the Rose, the Madonna of the Napkin, the Madonna of the Cherries, and the Madonna of the Grapes. Of all the madonnas, the most noted is the Sistine Madonna by Raphael, shown in the museum at Dresden. See Raphael; Sistine Madonna; Holbein; Murillo