Bartolomeo Vivarini, with his older brother and nephew Alvise, was a dominant figure of Venetian painting in the second half of the 15^th Century, rivaling the Bellini family. Based in Murano, they produced works for local patrons as well as further afield, providing altarpieces for churches in Istria, the Marches and even Apulia.

This engaging Madonna and Child is typical of the paintings that Bartolomeo Vivarini produced for household devotion. The Virgin is shown against a cloth of honor with a rocky landscape in the distance and behind a ledge upon which the artist has signed his name. His linear style, which was influenced in his youth by Mantegna, is still evident. However, this work appears to respond to the innovative treatment of this subject by Giovanni Bellini in the 1470s. This panel dates most likely to circa 1480/85, and it is stylistically related to two dated works of 1481—one in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco (inv. no. 54459) and on in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin (inv. no. 160)—as well as an undated painting of circa 1480 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. no. 157) (fig. 1).