The oil on canvas depicting the Madonna and Child, is a valuable addition to the catalogue of Sebastiano Ricci, the renowned and internationally acclaimed leading figure of the eighteenth-century Venetian school. The painting is of exceptional pictorial quality, evident in the dense modelling of the Virgin’s face, her sorrowful expression and characteristic downward gaze; in the vibrant handling of the coppery-red hair visible beneath her veil, echoed in the curls of the Christ Child; and in the crisp rendering of the white sheet that envelops him like a beam of light, set in striking contrast against the empty brown background, whose stark simplicity is remarkably modern.

The Madonna’s maternal love for the Child is conveyed through the tender intertwining of their hands, which, soft and slender, reach toward one another with affection. The artwork thus emerges as the perfect object for private devotion, most probably intended for the British market or acquired shortly thereafter by a member of the Scottish Fraser Tytler family.