Madonna and Child with St. Anne

The Madonna and Child with St. Anne (1512) by Andrea Sansovino

The Madonna and Child with St. Anne (1512) by Andrea Sansovino (c. 1467-1529) is directly below Raphael’s fresco and was part of the original design for the tomb of Goritz in Sant’Agostino in Rome. According to non-standard biblical sources, St Anne was the mother of Mary and the positioning of the sculpture follows the line from the prediction of the coming of Christ by Isaiah to the actual birth of Christ. In their faces, Andrea Sansovino skilfully showed the contrast in the ages between Jesus’s mother and grandmother. In contrast to many other similar works, the eye contact is between Jesus and Anne.