Description
The Madonna of Bruges is a marble sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, made between 1503 and 1505 and kept in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium. The Mouscrons, a Flemish family of textile merchants, commissioned the artist to Madonna and Child to be placed in their family chapel in Bruges, just when Michelangelo was busy making the David. The statue reinterprets the relationship between Jesus and Mary, where the latter, very similar to the Mary of the Vatican Pietà, made a few years earlier, looks down, while the Child seems to be lowering himself, moving away from Mary and holding only his mother’s hand. Maria holds a booklet with her right hand, probably the Holy Scriptures, where the sad destiny is reported of Jesus, and having read the untimely death of her son, the woman has a sad and lost look in the void.
