arms, seeking shelter from danger, but the Sistine boy is like a little prince who is thinking of his people, and is setting forth to help the world. In the children’s phrase one is “babyish,” and the other “manly.” I call the Chair Madonna the “Madonna of Love,” and the Sistine, the “Madonna of Service.” The central portion of the Sistine Madonna makes a picture complete in itself. In fact many of the most attractive Madonna subjects are made in this way, by photographing the central detail in a separate print.
A subject closely akin to the Madonna and Child is Charity, a symbolic expression of that all-embracing spirit of love which gathers the children of the world in its care. A noble group by Andrea del Sarto treats this subject as a motherly woman seated, with a child at her breast, another on her knee, and another at her feet. Burne-Jones made a tall, narrow panel of Charity standing with a baby on each arm and four children at her feet. Abbot Thayer’s painting in the Boston Art Museum is a third well-known example. Here Charity extends both arms as if to shelter all children beneath them, and two little ones stand at her feet nestling against her sides. Such pictures are admirably adapted to the nursery and the lower grade schoolroom. And perhaps here, better than anywhere else, should be mentioned that beautiful picture of kindred theme, Murillo’s Guardian Angel.
The Holy Family is an enlargement of the Madonna subject by the introduction of other figures. A pleasant fancy of the old masters was to represent
