Description
Marble bas-relief executed by Michelangelo between 1504 and 1506.
San Giovannino, on the left, hands a goldfinch, symbol of the passion and the soul, to the child Jesus who seeks refuge in the womb of his mother Mary, almost making a leap towards her.
Mary, with a face veiled by a severe and melancholy expression at the same time, seems to stare at little Saint John, as if to reproach him for this innocent gesture.
The figures of the bas-relief slowly emerge from the bottom plane, which appears to have been left in a rough, rough state.
The English painter John Constable, the greatest exponent of British Romanticism, was entranced by the Tondo Taddei so much that he defined it: “One of the greatest works of art ever”.
It is kept at the Royal Academy in London.
