# Madonna and Child [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [MICHELANGELO Buonarroti]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Marble, height 128 cm \(including base\) ## Commentary Madonna and Child 1501-05 Marble, height 128 cm \(including base\) O.L. Vrouwekerk, Bruges The Bruges Madonna is a finished statue of the Virgin and Child bought by the Flemish merchant Alexander Mouscron and shipped to Bruges in 1506. It is one of Michelangelo's most accomplished carvings. The apparently simple and compact relationship between Child and Virgin was carefully calculated to take account of its intended position in the church, about which he obviously had reliable information. \(Ironically, it was subsequently positioned incorrectly in the niche made for it at Bruges.\) The group strikingly contrasts a cool and hieratic figure of the Virgin with an animated Christ Child whose subtly twisting body she encloses and protects as though he were still sheltered within her body. ## Related artworks - [A Man Lifting a Boar onto his Shoulder \(verso\)]() - [Abraham - Isaac - Jacob - Judah]() - [Achim - Eliud \(detail\)]() - [Achim - Eliud \(detail\)]() - [Achim - Eliud]() - [Aeneas with a Boy \(recto\)]() - [Allegorical figure]() - [Amminadab \(detail\)]() - [Amminadab \(detail\)]() - [Amminadab]() - [Ancestors of Christ: figures \(detail\)]() - [Ancestors of Christ: figures \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()