Madonna and Child with Four Angels

Baccio della Porta was one of the foremost members of the Florentine school of painting during the High Renaissance. This artist’s distinguishing features can be reckoned to be sincerity of feeling, an elevated mood and refined simplicity. He is considered to have been strongly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. Baccio della Porta first met the latter in 1504, when Raphael visited Florence, and they formed a friendship that lasted the rest of his life. Vasari writes that Raphael, too, sought to learn from Baccio and for that reason “was constantly in his company”.
Baccio della Porta was one of the first painters who tried to depict how clothing drapes over the body in an accurate rather than stylized manner, using mannequins and painting fabrics from life to achieve that end.
The artist became known as Fra Bartolomeo after he withdrew to a monastery, where he practically gave up painting. Later, however, Baccio della Porto was invited to Rome, where he received commissions for murals, while in 1515 he visited Paris at the invitation of King Francis I.
The Madonna and Child with Four Angels was painted in 1514 and belongs to the artist’s late period. It is a good representation of typical elements of his style: a certain naivety and sentimentality in the treatment of the subject but combined with the immaculate handling of colour that Raphael rated so highly.