The Madonna of Loreto is a famous painting (1604–1606) by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

, located in the Cavalletti Chapel of the church of Sant'Agostino, near the Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona

Piazza Navona is a city square in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the Stadium of Domitian, built in 1st century AD, and follows the form of the open space of the stadium. The ancient Romans came there to watch the agones , and hence it was known as 'Circus Agonalis'...

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. It depicts the apparition of the barefoot virgin and naked child to two peasants on a pilgrimage; or as some say it is the quickening of the iconic statue of the Virgin.

In 1603 the heirs of one Ermete Cavalletti commissioned for the decoration of the family chapel with a painting on the theme of this icon. Giovanni Baglione

Giovanni Baglione

Giovanni Baglione was an Italian Late Mannerist and Early Baroque painter and art historian. He is best remembered for his acrimonious involvement with the artist Caravaggio and his writings concerning the other Roman artists of his time.-Early life:A pupil of Francesco Morelli, he worked mainly...

, a competing painter of lesser talent, but who had successfully obtained Caravaggio's jailing during a libel trial, said that the unveiling of this painting "caused the common people to make a great cackle (schiamazzo) over it". The uproar was not surprising. The Virgin Mary, like her admiring pilgrims, is barefoot. The doorway or niche is not an exalted cumulus or bevy of putti, but a partly decrepit wall of flaking brick is visible. Only the merest halo sanctifies her and the baby. While beautiful, the Virgin Mary could be any woman, emerging from the night shadows. Like many of Caravaggio's Roman paintings, such as the Conversion on the Way to Damascus

Conversion on the Way to Damascus

The Conversion on the Way to Damascus is a masterpiece by Caravaggio, painted in 1601 for the Cerasi Chapel of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome. Across the chapel is a second Caravaggio painting depicting the inverted Crucifixion of St. Peter...

or the Calling of St Matthew

The Calling of St Matthew (Caravaggio)

The Calling of Saint Matthew is a masterpiece by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, depicting the Calling of Matthew. It was completed in 1599-1600 for the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation, San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome...

, the scene is a moment where everyday common man (or woman) encounters the divine, whose appearance is also not unlike that of a common man (or woman). The woman modelling Mary appears to be the same as that in the canvas in the Galleria Borghese

Galleria Borghese

The Borghese Gallery is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana. It is a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens...

: The Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Dei Palafrenieri)

Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Dei Palafrenieri) (Caravaggio)

The Madonna and Child with St. Anne is one of the mature religious works of the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio, painted in 1605-1606, for the altar of Archconfraternity of the Papal Grooms in the Basilica of Saint Peter...

(1605).