The Lucca Madonna is an oil painting

Oil painting

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...

 of the Madonna and Child by the Early Netherlandish

Early Netherlandish painting

Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

 master Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....

, from 1436. It is on display in the Städel

Städel

The Städel, officially the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, is an art museum in Frankfurt am Main, with one of the most important collections in Germany....

 Museum in Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

.

It is known as Lucca Madonna as it belonged to the collection of Charles II, Duke of Parma

Charles II, Duke of Parma

Charles Louis of Bourbon-Parma was King of Etruria , Duke of Lucca , and Duke of Parma .-Early life and marriage:...

 and Lucca

Lucca

Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...

, in the early 19th century. It is one of the latest works by Jan van Eyck. The Virgin has been identified as a portrait of the painters's wife, Margaretha, of whom van Eyck also made a secular portrait.http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Jan_van_Eyck_086.jpg
It portrays the Virgin sitting on a throne with four small lion statues, a reference to the throne of Solomon

Solomon

Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...

, which had twelve lions on the sides and steps. In Iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

 this depiction of Madonna and Child, with Jesus sitting on Mary's knee, is called the Throne of Wisdom, and is a common iconological type. As the Speculum Humanae Salvationis

Speculum Humanae Salvationis

The Speculum Humanae Salvationis or Mirror of Human Salvation was a bestselling anonymous illustrated work of popular theology in the late Middle Ages, part of the genre of encyclopedic speculum literature, in this case concentrating on the medieval theory of typology, whereby the events of the Old...

 put it:

"the throne of the true Solomon is the most Blessed Virgin Mary,

In which sat Jesus Christ, the true wisdom."

As in many paintings by van Eyck and his contemporaries, this comparison is further elaborated by specifically comparing Mary to an altar

Altar

An altar is any structure upon which offerings such as sacrifices are made for religious purposes. Altars are usually found at shrines, and they can be located in temples, churches and other places of worship...

, where on her flat lap she supports the infant Christ, just as the altar supports the presence of Christ in the host at Mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

. The white cloth beneath him, over the richer coloured cloth of Mary's dress, and the niche to the right which resembles a piscina

Piscina

A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. Roman Catholics usually refer to the drain, and by extension, the basin, as the sacrarium...

where water for the priest to wash his hands was kept, all contribute to the comparison. The unusual shape of the room, very narrow for such a large chair, suggests a small chapel.