Madonna in Glory With Seraphim (Botticelli)

Madonna in Glory with Seraphim is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed c. 1469-1470. It is housed in Galleria degli Uffizi of Florence.

Some panel paintings of the Madonna by Botticelli remain from the years around 1470 which are striking expressions of Botticelli's stylistic development. Two full figure pictures of the Madonna - the Madonna in Glory and the Madonna of the Rosegarden - are in the Uffizi. They represent monumental seated figures filling the entire picture.

Mary is enthroned on clouds in a glory of seraphim. The Christ Child, with the cruciform nimbus, is looking towards the observer and raising his hand in blessing. Botticelli has succeeded in expressing the tensions in this theme with sensitivity: the mother, who is fully aware of the Passion her son will suffer, is holding him protectively in her arms.

Botticelli
Works
  • Madonna and Child with an Angel
  • Madonna and Child with an Angel
  • Madonna della Loggia
  • The Virgin and Child with Two Angels and the Young St. John the Baptist
  • The Annunciation
  • The Virgin and Child, St. John and an Angel
  • Madonna and Child
  • Adoration of the Magi
  • Portrait of a Young Man
  • Madonna in Glory with Seraphim
  • Madonna of the Sea
  • Madonna of the Rosegarden (Madonna del Roseto)
  • Madonna and Child and Two Angels
  • Portrait of Esmeralda Brandini
  • Fortitude
  • Madonna and Child with Six Saints (Sant'Ambrogio Altarpiece)
  • Madonna and Child with an Angel
  • The Return of Judith to Bethulia
  • The Discovery of the Murder of Holofernes
  • Adoration of the Magi
  • Portrait of a Young Woman
  • Adoration of the Magi
  • St. Sebastian
  • Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder
  • Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici
  • Madonna and Child
  • Catherine of Alexandria
  • Nativity
  • Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici
  • The Birth of Christ
  • Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici
  • Madonna and Child with Eight Angels
  • St. Augustine
  • Madonna of the Magnificat (Madonna del Magnificat)
  • Madonna of the Book (Madonna del Libro)
  • Portrait of a Young Woman
  • Portrait of a Young Woman
  • Annunciation
  • St. Sixtus II
  • Adoration of the Magi
  • Primavera
  • Pallas and the Centaur
  • Venus and Mars
  • Portrait of a Young Man
  • Portrait of a Young Man
  • The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti
  • Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman
  • A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts
  • The Virgin and Child Enthroned (Bardi Altarpiece)
  • The Birth of Venus
  • Annunciation
  • Madonna Adoring the Child with Five Angels
  • Madonna of the Pomegranate (Madonna della Melagrana)
  • The Virgin and Child with Four Angels and Six Saints (Pala di San Barnaba)
  • Vision of St. Augustine
  • Christ in the Sepulcre
  • Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist
  • Extraction of St. Ignatius' Heart
  • Cestello Annunciation
  • The Virgin Adoring the Child
  • Lamentation over the Dead Christ
  • Portrait of a Man
  • San Marco Altarpiece
  • St. Augustine in His Cell
  • Madonna and Child and the Young St John the Baptist
  • Portrait of Lorenzo di Ser Piero Lorenzi
  • Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist
  • Holy Trinity (Pala delle Convertite)
  • The Virgin and Child with Three Angels (Madonna del Padiglione)
  • Calumny of Apelles
  • Lamentation over the Dead Christ with Saints
  • Last Communion of St. Jerome
  • Portrait of Dante
  • The Story of Virginia
  • The Story of Lucretia
  • Crucifixion
  • Christ Crowned with Thorns
  • Transfiguration, St Jerome, St Augustine
  • Judith Leaving the Tent of Holofernes
  • Agony in the Garden
  • The Mystical Nativity
  • Baptism of St. Zenobius and His Appointment as Bishop
  • Three Miracles of St. Zenobius
  • Three Miracles of St. Zenobius
  • Last Miracle and the Death of St. Zenobius

Famous quotes containing the words madonna, glory and/or seraphim:

    In our minds lives the madonna image—the all-embracing, all- giving tranquil mother of a Raphael painting, one child at her breast, another at her feet; a woman fulfilled, one who asks nothing more than to nurture and nourish. This creature of fantasy, this myth, is the model—the unattainable ideal against which women measure, not only their performance, but their feelings about being mothers.
    Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)

    The Father and His angelic hierarchy
    That made the magnitude and glory there
    Stood in the circuit of a needle’s eye.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)