Triptych of the Madonna and Child: Detail, the central figures

Poreč Basilica, Poreč, Croatia

The child holds an orb symbolic of his rule over the universe and forms his right hand in the blessing configuration. His clothing makes it likely that the triptych was created some time after the middle of the 16th century, when the vogue for picturing him naked started to lose favor. But another detail, the tubular pillow on which the Virgin Mary sits, goes back to at least the 5th century. The blessing also harks back to earlier versions of this iconographic type.

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Photographed at the basilica by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.