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RENI, Guido: Education of the Virgin

🖼 Education of the Virgin, 1640-42
Oil on canvas
146 × 206 cm
St. Petersburg, Russia

Soft brushwork renders Virgin Mary as a golden-haired child learning to read from Saint Anne in an intimate domestic interior. Reni's tender scene elevates everyday instruction into spiritual narrative, establishing the maternal education theme central to Counter-Reformation devotional art.

The story of art
The story of art
E. H. Gombrich
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