Workshop of Carlo Crivelli
Madonna and Child with St. Onuphrius
Second half of the 15th century
The Giorgio Franchetti Gallery at the Ca' d'Oro, Venice, Italy
The child holds a pomegranate, at once a symbol of his reign and of the blood he will shed on the cross.
Like Orthodox portraits of Onuphrius, this one from Italy covers the saint's waist with leaves rather than with a copious growth of beard and hair. The rosary in his hand was increasingly popular as an element in religious paintings in the later 15th century: the Web Gallery of Art (consulted 2018-10-18 for this article) includes several works including rosaries from the second half of the 15th century, but none at all from earlier periods.
Judging from the Web Gallery's collection, the placing of a ledge between the viewer and the Madonna is also a feature unknown until the second half of the century.
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Photographed at the gallery by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.