La belle jardinière

Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with... the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains a central artistic topic. No image permeates Christian art as the image of Madonna and Child. While Mary, the Mother of Jesus, may be referred to as "the Madonna" in other contexts, in art the term is applied specifically to an artwork in which Mary, with or without the infant Jesus, is the focus, and central figure of the picture. Mary and the infant Jesus may be surrounded by adoring angels or worshiping saints. Images that have a narrative content, including those of the many scenes which make up the Life of the Virgin, are not correctly referred to as "Madonnas" but are given a title that reflects the scene such as the Annunciation to Mary. The earliest such images date from the Early Christian Church and are found in the Catacombs of Rome. Representation of Mary became more common after the Council of Ephesus in 431.
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The expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance.... The High Renaissance period is traditionally taken to begin in the 1490s, with Leonardo's fresco of the Last Supper in Milan and the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, and to have ended in 1527 with the sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles V. This term was first used in German in the early nineteenth century, and has its origins in the "High Style" of painting and sculpture described by Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Over the last twenty years, use of the term has been frequently criticized by academic art historians for over-simplifying artistic developments, ignoring historical context, and focusing only on a few iconic works. The High Renaissance is traditionally taken to refer to a period of exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, principally Rome, capital of the Papal States, under Pope Julius II.
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