Madonna and Child (oil on panel)

This panel probably once formed the left portion of a diptych. The other half is mostly likely to have been the Christ taking leave of his Mother in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. It has been suggested that the subject matter of the diptych was based on the Meditations on the Life of Christ, written by a Franciscan friar known as the Pseudo-Bonaventure. The text urges the reader to contemplate the stages of Christ’s life. However, there is no passage that describes the Virgin offering the Christ Child an apple (an allusion to Christ as Redeemer), and it seems more probable that the Upton panel was inspired by Eastern icons. The small size of the diptych suggests that it was a portable piece, possibly used as a devotional aid on journeys. It would, however, have been a ‘luxury good’, its illusionistic painted porphyry exterior giving the impression of a sumptuous casket.