Lippo Memmi - Mary breastfeeding the child

• Title: Mary breastfeeding the child
• Artist: Lippo Memmi (1291-1356)
• Date: c.1340-50
• Medium: Oil on poplar panel
• Dimensions: 32 x 23 cm

In "Mary breastfeeding the child", Lippo Memmi paints Mary with Jesus lying on her lap, holding Mary's breast and suckling on it. This type of iconography is not uncommon in 14th century Tuscany, although in the culture of the time and place it posed the problem of how to show the breastfeeding of Christ by the Virgin Mary, the quintessential maternal gesture, without undermining the uniqueness of their relationship and of the status of the two saintly figures. Lippo Memmi solves this question by almost completely covering the breast with the hand of Christ.

Also important is Mary is looking at Jesus as a mother and Jesus is looking at the viewer to offer intercession, which can be interpreted as demonstrating their respective roles of Mother of God and God.

Yet all the options in compositions were explored by Italian artists of the late medieval era -

Barnaba da Modena's composition of 1350 had both Jesus and Mary looking at the viewer.

The representation by Master of the Yale Dossal c. 1270 to be found at Yale University has Jesus looking at Mary and Mary looking at the viewer

The last possibility was having Jesus and Mary looking at each other and not at the viewer while breastfeeding, such as Bernardo Daddi's "Triptych of the Virgin nursing the Child" of the first part of the 14th century.