The Plymouth Madonna of the Well by the Young Filippino Lippi, alongside Botticelli

by Andrea De Marchi

The rare and refined painting, depicts a moment of intense devotion: the Virgin Mary brings the Infant Jesus close to the young Saint John the Baptist, in a delicate interplay of gestures and glances steeped in symbolic meaning.
The well, the hut, and the ruins in the background symbolize baptism, the coming of the Saviour and the transition from the ancient world to the new era of Grace. The composition, slender and elegant, reveals a sensibility deeply rooted in the culture of the young Botticelli, yet already characterised by a more subtle, linear and lyrical style.
It is precisely these elements that lead to the addition to Filippino Lippi, a very precocious pupil of Botticelli and a key figure, in Florence during the 1470s, in an intense dialogue with his master.
Having remained in the same family for over a century, after being acquired in Florence between 1890 and 1905, the work now represents a significant rediscovery of a crucial moment in Florentine Renaissance painting.